The stereotypical image of a hacker is a guy who spends all his time holed up in his bedroom or den, fingers flying over the keyboard while red, bleary eyes, kept open only by continuous doses of Jolt cola, search the monitor for opportunities to ply his trade.

Not so anymore, hackers are getting out and about these days and practicing a more outdoorsy kind of hobby: drive-by hacking.

Wi-Fi makes it possible for drive-by hackers to park near wi-fi hotspots and steal data from unsuspecting computer and laptop users. According to a story at Consumer Affairs, the huge data loss suffered by TJ Maxx has been identified as being the work of drive-by hackers.

TJ Maxx was using an old protocol for its network that was notoriously simple to hack. Add to that the fact that TJ Maxx didn’t use encryption when sending data from transactions to banks and the theft was almost too easy. Using stolen credit card and debit card numbers, the hackers were able to counterfeit credit cards and purchase Wal-Mart gift cards. They redeemed the gift cards for thousands of dollars in merchandise.