PORTLAND, Maine — A security breach at an East Coast supermarket chain exposed 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers and led to 1,800 cases of fraud, the Hannaford Bros. grocery chain announced Monday.

The breach affected all of its 165 stores in the Northeast, 106 Sweetbay stores in Florida and a smaller number of independent groceries that sell Hannaford products.

Hannaford said credit and debit card numbers were stolen during the card authorization process and about 4.2 million unique account numbers were exposed.

The company is aware of about 1,800 cases of fraud reported so far relating to the breach.

No personal data such as names, addresses or telephone numbers were divulged — just account numbers.

Hannaford became aware of the breach Feb. 27. Investigators later discovered that the data breach began on Dec. 7; it wasn't contained until March 10, said Carol Eleazer, Hannaford's vice president of marketing in Scarborough.....for more of the story from FoxNews [1]