Friday, 07/26/2013 - DFI News
U.S. Dept. of Justice
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 and
resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. It is the largest such
scheme ever prosecuted in the United States.
The charges were announced by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman of
the District of New Jersey; Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of
the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; and Special Agent in Charge James
Mottola of the U.S. Secret Service (USSS), Criminal Investigations, Newark,
N.J., Division. The USSS led the investigation of the indicted conspiracy.
The defendants allegedly sought corporate victims engaged in
financial transactions, retailers that received and transmitted financial data
and other institutions with information they could exploit for profit. The
defendants are charged with attacks on NASDAQ, 7-Eleven, Carrefour, JCP,
Hannaford, Heartland, Wet Seal, Commidea, Dexia, JetBlue, Dow Jones, Euronet,
Visa Jordan, Global Payment, Diners Singapore and Ingenicard. It is not alleged
that the NASDAQ hack affected its trading platform.
According to the
second superseding indictment unsealed in Newark federal court and other court
filings, the five men each served particular roles in the scheme. Vladimir
Drinkman, 32, of Syktyykar and Moscow, Russia, and Alexandr Kalinin, 26, of St.
Petersburg, Russia, each allegedly specialized in penetrating network security
and gaining access to the corporate victims’ systems. Roman Kotov, 32, of Moscow,
allegedly specialized in mining the networks Drinkman and Kalinin compromised
to steal valuable data. Court documents allege that the defendants hid their
activities using anonymous web-hosting services provided by Mikhail Rytikov,
26, of Odessa, Ukraine. Dmitriy
Smilianets, 29, of Moscow, allegedly sold the information stolen by the other
conspirators and distributed the proceeds of the scheme to the participants.
“This type of crime
is the cutting edge,” said U.S. Attorney Fishman. “Those who have the expertise
and the inclination to break into our computer networks threaten our economic
well-being, our privacy, and our national security. And this case shows, there
is a real practical cost because these types of frauds increase the costs of
doing business for every American consumer, every day. We cannot be too vigilant and we cannot be
too careful.”
“The defendants
charged today were allegedly responsible for spearheading a worldwide hacking
conspiracy that victimized a wide array of consumers and entities, causing
hundreds of millions of dollars in losses,” said Acting Assistant Attorney
General Raman. “Despite substantial efforts by the defendants to conceal their
alleged crimes, the Department and its law enforcement counterparts have
cracked this extensive scheme and are seeking justice for its many victims.
Today’s indictment will no doubt serve as a serious warning to those who would
utilize illegal and fraudulent means to steal sensitive information online.”
“As is evident by
this indictment, the Secret Service will continue to apply innovative
techniques to successfully investigate and arrest transnational cyber
criminals,” said USSS Special Agent in Charge Mottola. “While the global nature
of cybercrime continues to have a profound impact on our financial
institutions, this case demonstrates the global investigative steps that U.S.
Secret Service Special Agents are taking to ensure that criminals will be
pursued and prosecuted no matter where they reside.”
Kalinin and Drinkman
were previously charged in New Jersey as “Hacker 1” and “Hacker 2” in a 2009
indictment charging Albert Gonzalez, 32, of Miami, in connection with five
corporate data breaches — including the breach of Heartland Payment Systems
Inc., which at the time was the largest breach ever reported. Gonzalez is currently serving 20 years in
federal prison for those offenses. The
U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced two
additional indictments against Kalinin: one charges him in connection with hacking
certain computer servers used by NASDAQ and a second indictment, unsealed
today, charged Kalinin and another alleged Russian hacker, Nikolay Nasenkov,
with an international scheme to steal bank account information by hacking
U.S.-based financial institutions. Rytikov was previously charged in the
Eastern District of Virginia with an unrelated scheme. Kotov and Smilianets have not previously been
charged publicly in the United States.
Drinkman and
Smilianets were arrested at the request of the United States while traveling in
the Netherlands on June 28, 2012. Smilianets was extradited on Sept. 7, 2012,
and remains in federal custody. He will appear in New Jersey federal court to
be arraigned on the superseding indictment on a date to be determined. Kalinin,
Kotov and Rytikov remain at large. All of the defendants are Russian nationals
except for Rytikov, who is a citizen of Ukraine.
The Attacks: Read More From the Dept. of Justice Report
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