Friday, November 14, 2014

Hacker Attacked: Behind the Bars

Behind the Bars









“In just one day in 2008, an American credit card processor was hacked in perhaps one of the most sophisticated and organized computer fraud attacks ever conducted,” according to a release published by the FBI.

Sentenced. Slammed. Served.

Back in 2008, RBS WorldPay, an electronic payment processing service had fallen victim to a data breach.  An unauthorized user gained access into the companies computer system and obtained personal information of 1.5 million gift card and payroll cardholders. This included names, addresses, dates of birth, and social security numbers. A critical amount of personal data was compromised.

These cyber criminals used highly sophisticated hacking techniques to compromise the data encryption that was used to protect customers against potential hackers. Officials were determined to sentence the leader of this cyber attack, and eventually did, 6 years later.

An Estonian man, Sergei Tsurikov, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for the role he played in the 9.4 million dollar data breach. The FBI has detailed the hacker’s involvement in this breach in a press release they published.

“A leader of one of the most sophisticated cyber crime rings in the world has been brought to justice and sentenced,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.

Thanks to the corporation of various law enforcement agencies worldwide, this prosecution was successful. The FBI informs the public that on top of the 11-year sentence that Tsurikov must complete, he must top it off with three years of supervised release, as well as pay out a restitution fee of $8.4 million.

Let this be a lesson that Security cracking does not pay always pay off . . . sometimes you get caught.




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