Hacking and Identity Theft Ring Leader Gets 20 Years Prison
By Anna Johnson on April 6th, 2010Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, the leader of the largest hacking and identity theft ring ever prosecuted by the U.S. Government has been sentenced to 20 years and one day in prison for leading a series of hacks into a major payment processor and several retail networks, including TJX Companies, BJ’s Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble and Sports Authority.
Gonzalez, who was convicted in separate cases brought in Massachusetts and New York respectively, had, along with his co-conspirators, broken into retail credit card payment systems through a series of sophisticated techniques. These included ‘wardriving’ – driving around in a car with a laptop computer looking for insecure wireless computer networks of retailers – and installing sniffer programs to capture credit and debit card numbers used at the victim retail stores.
The hacking ring was able to steal more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from victim retailers. According to court documents, Gonzalez and his co-conspirators sold the numbers to others and also engaged in ATM fraud by encoding the data on the magnetic stripe of blank cards and withdrawing thousands of dollars at a time from ATMs.
Gonzalez and the other hackers then concealed and laundered their fraud proceeds by using anonymous Internet-based currencies both within the United States and abroad, and by channeling funds through bank accounts in Eastern Europe.
Gonzalez’s co-conspirators were located throughout the United States, Estonia and the Ukraine. To date, six co-conspirators have pleaded guilty in the United States. All face hefty prison sentences.
It ain’t pretty, but it’s reality. As both Internet marketers and Internet users it’s imperative that we take steps to protect ourselves, as much as possible, from the likes of Albert Gonzalez.
