Posted on 07/25/2013 1:59:48 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
For nearly a decade, a band of cybercriminals rampaged through the servers of a global business who's who: Among the victims were 7-Eleven, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, JetBlue and JC Penney. Prosecutors say the hackers stole "conservatively" 160 million credit card numbers, and the dollar value of the crimes they helped facilitate is enormous — just four of the victims are out $300 million. The suffering caused to identity theft victims was "immeasurable," say prosecutors.
On Thursday, five of the gang's members were indicted. One is in custody in the U.S., a second is awaiting extradition in the Netherlands, and three more are still at large in what U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said is the largest data heist case ever prosecuted.
Dmitriy Smilianets, 29, of Moscow, is in custody, while Vladimir Drinkman, 32, of Syktyykar, is awaiting an extradition hearing. The other three — Aleksandr Kalinin, 26, Roman Kotov, 32, and Ukrainian Mikhail Rytikov, 26, remain at large.
Originally part of a crime ring led by Albert Gonzalez, who was arrested back in 2008, the five continued their data conquests even after Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The group kept security professionals and journalists busy for years, causing embarrassing data leaks at grocery-store chain Hannaford Brothers Co. (4.2 million cards), Discover (2 million cards), and Dow Jones (10,000 corporate logins).
Often, one of the criminals would shop at the retailers to observe checkout registers and deduce which systems were used, assessing their vulnerability. Then, they'd gain access to credit card payment systems and siphon off millions of victims' account numbers as they were involved in transactions.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Thanks JimRob.
I’d hire them to hack into the IRS.
“VERY rarely you can get local cops close to where the fraud might have originated to take an interest, but it’s rare.”
Of course. The police exist for the defense and security of the state. They have no legal responsibility to provide services to you.
I honestly don't know if this is sarcasm or not... Too much truth that NBC puts out propaganda garbage...
We just need more Agile Cyber Security “Prooofessionals” running in circles, and more layers of politically correct IT hierarchy wearing pink/purple shirts on Thursday to keep us safe Jim.
“It’s about jobs”
Fox Mr. Charlie Fox - please trot to the nearest Secure tin can and string phone.
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