Five charged with credit card hacking, largest breach ever in US history

Four Russian nationals and a Ukrainian have been charged in what feds called largest hacking and data breach ever in U.S. history.

They are accused of stealing user names and passwords, personal identification information, and credit and debit card numbers.

The massive hacking scheme steal info from more than 160 million credit card numbers and a cost of hundred of million of dollars.

“worldwide scheme that targeted major corporate networks, stole more than 160 million credit card numbers and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses,” Paul Fishman, the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, said today.

The five men had different roles, one of the accused hosted “bullet-proof” web-hosting services, two of the defendants hacked corporate networks, one mined and stole sensitive data and the fifth sold that information to “identity theft wholesalers.”

“This type of crime is the cutting edge,” Fishman said. “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 cost of doing business for every American consumer, every day,” he added.

After stealing credit card information (dumps) the men sold it to “dumps resellers,” who then sold it through online underground  forums or to individuals and organizations, prosecutors charged.

The hackers used computers in at least 7 countries including of the U.S, one of defendant allegedly responsible of providing web hosting services to help hid identities.

Two of the men were arrested at the request of U.S. authorities on June 2012 in the Netherlands. The three other indicted men were still at large Thursday.

Source: Business Week.