Biggest U.S. Hack Case Is Tale of Gamers’ Interrupted Vacation

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-12/biggest-u-s-hack-case-is-tale-of-gamers-interrupted-vacation.html

By Stepan Kravchenko, Carol Matlack and Dune Lawrence
Bloomberg
Jan 11, 2015

Vladimir Drinkman says he met Dmitriy Smilianets online playing 
Counter-Strike, a shooter game in which cyber-combatants assume the roles 
of either terrorists or counter-terrorists: bad guys or good guys.

More than a decade later, the two young Russians are both behind bars -- 
Drinkman in the Netherlands, Smilianets in New Jersey -- charged with 
being among the most prolific of online bad guys in the biggest 
data-breach prosecution in U.S. history.

Arrested in 2012 while vacationing together in Amsterdam, they’re accused 
of a conspiracy that pillaged 160 million credit card numbers, targeting 
Heartland Payment Systems Inc., 7-Eleven Inc., the Hannaford Bros. Co. 
grocery chain and at least 14 other companies from 2005 to 2012.

The federal indictment paints Drinkman as a master at evading online 
security and penetrating corporate networks, assisted by Smilianets as the 
cash-out specialist who priced and sold the card numbers. Three other 
alleged co-conspirators -- two Russians and one Ukrainian -- remain at 
large.

[...]

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