TheNerds.net was trying to evaluate how many of its 100,000 customers were affected by the break-in, President David Kriegstein said. Scores of customers reported getting e-mail directly from the alleged hacker, and the company began directly notifying all customers that their credit card information, home address and phone numbers may have been stolen.

"From the looks of it, it wasn't hard to get every last bit of my identity necessary to facilitate fraud," said customer Maxwell Shantar, who got an e-mail from the intruder and in turn, sent an angry e-mail to TheNerds accusing them of not doing enough to protect customer information.

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