A 19-year-old woman from Thomasville, Georgia has been charged with stealing credit card numbers from customers who visited the fast food restaurant where she was once employed. She allegedly then passed the information on to a prisoner convicted of committing murder, according to NBC.

One customer who had his personal information stolen told the news source that he was alarmed when he realized his card number had been compromised. "I had a random charge show up on my bank statement this month for some website. I am usually very careful with my card number, I only shop on Amazon.com. and iTunes, so the websites I shop on are very secure."

The prisoner with whom the 19-year-old-was involved supposedly used the information to make purchases at the prison commissary as well as at through various websites.

According to Javelin Strategy and Research, the number of identity theft cases increased by 22 percent in 2008, reaching a total of 9.9 million cases in the U.S. To protect personal information online, it's best to limit use of credit cards altogether and use personal finances to pay for purchases. One can also employ the services of a secure payment system to safeguard sensitive data.