The U.S. Secret Service recently arrested a Russian hacker who allegedly hacked into point-of-sale (POS) systems across the country and stole thousands of people’s credit card information.

According to a July 8 ZDNet.com article, Roman Valerevich Seleznev of Moscow was arrested on July 5 for allegedly hacking into these POS systems from October 2009 to February 2011 and stealing credit card data. U.S. prosecutors reported that Seleznev also ran servers and international carding forum websites, which expedited the theft and sale of this credit card information.

Currently, Seleznev is in custody pending trial. According to his indictment, Seleznev, 30, is being charged with “five counts of bank fraud, eight counts of intentionally causing damage to a protected computer, eight counts of obtaining information from a protected computer, one count of possession of 15 or more unauthorized access devices, two counts of trafficking unauthorized access devices and five counts of aggravated identity theft.”

“Despite this news, modern POS systems are secure and safe for people to use to make payments,” says Eric Catania of Digital Reality. “Business owners and customers should make sure they are only dealing with POS systems that are PCI Compliant, because the PCI-DSS standard has strong safeguards to protect customer data.”

If found guilty, ZDNet.com reports that Seleznev could be facing a prison sentence of dozens of years and fines that exceed $2 million, ZDNet.com reports.