for more on this, let's bring in intel crawler president dan clements. he joins us by phone. we got a lot of worried viewers and listeners out there. how severe now is the threat? >> well, we are still monitoring the threat. we see merchants that are vulnerable to what we call these p.o.s. attacks and it's quite a little niche that's been burrowed out in the underground. >> how did you find out? >> we monitor the underground hundreds of forums as far as what's going on with cybercrime and we noticed this niche popped up about a year ago, and a lot of these youngsters have zeroed in on -- >> when you say youngster, dan, i notice some of your reports suggested a 17-year-old had not only developed this malware but also apparently is selling it. if you're a criminal underworld businessman, i guess, you can buy this software. >> well, yeah, we believe that a 17-year-old was the original author of the malware, but his deal was to allow you to download the software and then if you got any credit cards, he would share the profits with you. >> when did you first find out about this? y

dan clements, a cybersecurity expert and head of intercrawler. what do you think? is the chip the answer? >> it is one of the answers. just another hurdle that could make it harder for the bad guys to hit credit and debit cards. melissa: why is it safer than a card? >> it embeds the number an encrypts. it is hard for bad guys to get it out of your wallet or get the particular pin number. melissa: in this particular case would it have made a difference? >> in this particular case the hackers got pin numbers which are encrypted and they're trying to descript them in the underground. in this particular case i'm not so sure it would make a difference. melissa: not terribly reassuring. how much more does it cost for something that may not have prevented the problem? >> the problem is not born by the consumer. >> of course it is. it always is. >> they will end up getting it passed along, you're right. it is a business case for the card associations to try to pay for that chip and pin technology. melissa: how much does it cost per card? i assume that is one of the reasons

dan clements said, merchants credit card processing system, has been affected with a malicious softwareed in moscow. he is currently in st. pete's pete's. it has been used to steal 40 million credit card numbers from target. intel crawler is described as inexpensive off the shelf type mallware. the at thor is not one mo attacked target. sold it to nine individuals one they think could be responsible for target. when i asked about the likelihood of a 1-year-old getting caught, clements said he is untouchable the same way snowden is untouchable. separately we learned the attack on neiman marcus started back in july and wasn't fully contained until this past sunday. the luxury retailer has not disclosed how many customers were affected by the breach. target will send representatives to testify before the house commerce committee early next month. shares hit a 52-week low in today's session. you can see the big red arrow there. ashley: a 17-year-old kid in his bedroom in st. pete's pete's -- st. petersburg, pulled off so much data? what is he doing with the data. >> he is selling it. he is