[ISN] TJX Hacker Charged With Heartland, Hannaford Breaches

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:22:08 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/tjx-hacker-charged-with-heartland/

By Kim Zetter
Threat Level
Wired.com
August 17, 2009

The constellation of hacks connected to the TJX hacker is growing.

Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez has been indicted by a federal grand jury in 
New Jersey - along with two unnamed Russian conspirators - on charges of 
hacking into Heartland Payment Systems, the New Jersey-based card 
processing company, as well as Hannaford Brothers, 7-Eleven and two 
unnamed national retailers, according to the indictment unsealed Monday. 
Gonzalez, a former Secret Service informant, is already awaiting trial 
over his involvement in the TJX hack.

According to the court document, the hackers allegedly stole more than 
130 million credit and debit card numbers (.pdf) from Heartland and 
Hannaford combined. Prosecutors say they believe these breaches 
constitute the largest data-breach and identity-theft case ever 
prosecuted in the United States. They're investigating other breaches 
and have not ruled out Gonzalez’s involvement in even more intrusions.

"We're not seeing a huge array of hackers capable of doing this, but 
rather a more select group, [and that] demonstrates that there is a 
level of sophistication involved in these hacks," said Assistant U.S. 
Attorney Erez Liebermann of the Justice Department’s New Jersey district 
office.

But these are just the latest in a string of high-profile breaches that 
have been connected to Gonzalez. He and 10 others were charged in May 
and August 2008 with network intrusions into TJX, OfficeMax, Dave & 
Busters restaurant chain and other companies. Jury selection is slated 
to begin Sept. 14 in one of those cases. With regard to the 
Heartland-Hannaford cases, Gonzalez and the two unnamed Russian hackers 
have been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud 
and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

[...]


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Received on Tue Aug 18 2009 - 02:22:08 PDT

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