INDICTMENT: 130 Million Credit Card Numbers Stolen by Three People

 

Albert GonzalezThree were indicted on Monday in what authorities believe to be the largest identity theft case prosecuted in history. Five corporate entities were victims in the case: 7-Eleven Inc., Hannaford Brothers Co., and Heartland Payment Systems along with two unidentified victims.

 

The indictment, available below, names Albert Gonzalez, a Miami man (who also went by the names "soupnazi," "segvec," and "j4guar17"), and two unnamed Russian hackers (cleverly named "Hacker 1" and "Hacker 2"). The indictment claims the criminals used "SQL Injection Attacks" and "Malware" to obtain the credit card numbers. The indictment further claims that the attacks were staged from servers located in New Jersey, California, Illinois, Latvia, the Netherlands, and the Ukraine. The perpetrators, after finding weaknesses in corporate systems and stealing credit card numbers, sold the credit card numbers to other criminals to make fraudulent purchases.

 

The three were indicted on one count of conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If convicted, the three face a maximum jail sentence of at least 25 years each, assuming the authorities find a way to apprehend the other two suspects.

 

View the indictment here.

 

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