Five charged with stealing 160+ million credit card numbers

A federal indictment made public in New Jersey charges five men with conspiring in a worldwide hacking and data breach scheme that targeted major corporate networks, stole more than 160 million credit card numbers, resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and is the largest such scheme ever prosecuted in the United States.

The five defendants conspired with others to penetrate the computer networks of several of the largest payment processing companies, retailers and financial institutions in the world, stealing the personal identifying information of individuals.

They took user names and passwords, means of identification, credit and debit card numbers and other corresponding personal identification information of cardholders. Conservatively, the conspirators unlawfully acquired more than 160 million card numbers through hacking.

The initial entry was often gained using a “SQL injection attack.” SQL, or Structured Query Language, is a type of programing language designed to manage data held in particular types of databases; the hackers identified vulnerabilities in SQL databases and used those vulnerabilities to infiltrate a computer network.

Once the network was infiltrated, the defendants placed malicious code, or malware, on the system. This malware created a “back door,” leaving the system vulnerable and helping the defendants maintain access to the network. In some cases, the defendants lost access to the system due to companies’ security efforts, but were able to regain access through persistent attacks.

Instant message chats obtained by law enforcement reveal the defendants often targeted the victim companies for many months, waiting patiently as their efforts to bypass security were underway. The defendants had malware implanted in multiple companies’ servers for more than a year.

The defendants used their access to the networks to install “sniffers,” which were programs designed to identify, collect and steal data from the victims’ computer networks. The defendants then used an array of computers located around the world to store the stolen data and ultimately sell it to others.

After acquiring the card numbers and associated data – which they referred to as “dumps” – the conspirators sold it to resellers around the world. The buyers then sold the dumps through online forums or directly to individuals and organizations. They would charge approximately $10 for each stolen American credit card number and associated data, approximately $50 for each European credit card number and associated data and approximately $15 for each Canadian credit card number and associated data – offering discounted pricing to bulk and repeat customers.

Ultimately, the end users encoded each dump onto the magnetic strip of a blank plastic card and cashed out the value of the dump by either withdrawing money from ATMs or making purchases with the cards.

Over the course of the conspiracy, the defendants communicated through private and encrypted communications channels to avoid detection. Fearing law enforcement would intercept even those communications, some of the conspirators attempted to meet in person.

To protect against detection by the victim companies, the defendants altered the settings on victim company networks to disable security mechanisms from logging their actions. The defendants also worked to evade existing protections by security software.

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