US launches largest ever hacking case
BBC Online
US prosecutors yesterday launched what they say is the country’s largest ever hacking fraud case.
Five men in Russia and Ukraine have been charged with running a hacking operation that allegedly stole more than 160 million credit and debit card numbers from a number of major US companies over a period of seven years.
Losses from the thefts amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. Paul Fishman, US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, called the case “the largest ever hacking and data scheme breach in the United States”.
Corporate victims included Nasdaq, Visa, Dow Jones and JC Penney. Other victims included Heartland Payment Systems, one of the world’s largest credit and debit card payment processing companies; French retailer Carrefour; Dexia Bank Belgium; and 7-Eleven.
The indictment identified the defendants as Vladimir Drinkman, Aleksander Kalinin, Roman Kotov and Dmitriy Smilianets, all from Russia, and Mikhail Rytikov, a Ukrainian. All five are charged with taking part in a computer hacking conspiracy and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Drinkman and Kalinin specialised in penetrating network security and hacking into corporate systems, prosecutors allege, while Kotov specialised in trawling through the data looking for information worth stealing.Rytikov ran the anonymous web-hosting services that enabled the others to carry out their activities, while Smilianets sold on the stolen data and farmed out the proceeds, prosecutors say.
Drinkman and Smilianets are both in custody but the other three remain at large.
Five men in Russia and Ukraine have been charged with running a hacking operation that allegedly stole more than 160 million credit and debit card numbers from a number of major US companies over a period of seven years.
Losses from the thefts amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. Paul Fishman, US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, called the case “the largest ever hacking and data scheme breach in the United States”.
Corporate victims included Nasdaq, Visa, Dow Jones and JC Penney. Other victims included Heartland Payment Systems, one of the world’s largest credit and debit card payment processing companies; French retailer Carrefour; Dexia Bank Belgium; and 7-Eleven.
The indictment identified the defendants as Vladimir Drinkman, Aleksander Kalinin, Roman Kotov and Dmitriy Smilianets, all from Russia, and Mikhail Rytikov, a Ukrainian. All five are charged with taking part in a computer hacking conspiracy and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Drinkman and Kalinin specialised in penetrating network security and hacking into corporate systems, prosecutors allege, while Kotov specialised in trawling through the data looking for information worth stealing.Rytikov ran the anonymous web-hosting services that enabled the others to carry out their activities, while Smilianets sold on the stolen data and farmed out the proceeds, prosecutors say.
Drinkman and Smilianets are both in custody but the other three remain at large.
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