August 5th, 2008
ID theft bust: Indictments are nice, more arrests much nicer
Praise be, big time. Almost.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorneys offices in Massachusetts and California announced today that they have indicted 11 individuals as part of an international ring of hackers (really, crackers) who purloined at least 40 million credit card and debit card numbers.
The numbers were swiped from some of the biggest names in U.S. retailing: TJX Companies (aka TJ Maxx), Barnes & Noble, Office Max, Boston Market, Sports Authority, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Forever 21 and DSW, a shoe seller.
The co-conspirators are accused of using “wardriving” to help them get into the companies’ networks, through wireless access points, and then put sniffers in place, to pick off the numbers as they moved through the networks.
If any company is still exposing itself to “wardriving,’’ pretty much shame on it, at this point. If your network is still open to folks who drive by in cars and pull down your data, the basics on how to avoid the problem have been out there since before Best Buy faced this problem. And you’ll want to get with the program at the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.
But even if the indictments result from the “largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice,” let’s not puff up our enforcement chests just yet.
The hardest part about prosecuting hackers is … putting the handcuffs on all the crackers.
Three individuals indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston — Albert Gonzalez, Christopher Scott, Damon Patrick Tohey — are identified as living in Miami. Others charged hail from Ukraine (3), China (2), Belarus (1) and Estonia (1), .
Gonzalez and two distant co-conspirators, Maksim Yastremskiy of Ukraine and Aleksandr “Jonny Hell” Suvorov of Estonia, are in custody.
Gonzalez could face life in prison, if convicted of all charges. Plus, this guy already has been indicted once before, in May, for actions against the Dave & Buster’s restaurant chain.
So let’s see now if the other Miamians also can be arrested.
Then, the really big applause will come when we see just how cooperative and interested in the case the Justice Department’s “law enforcement partners around the world” are.
Tom Steinert-Threlkeld is editor-in-chief of Securities Industry News, as well as a long-time media, technology and business journalist. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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