DOJ moves in on bank hacking rings

Matt Buttell

Last week, the US Department of Justice indicted eight individuals in what the authorities claim was a $9 million bank hacking operation. The indictment comes at an already difficult time for the banking industry, putting bank hacking firmly back in the spotlight.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, a federal grand jury issued the indictments after US authorities presented evidence of an alleged breach at the Atlanta offices of Royal Bank of Scotland's RBS WorldPay branch.

Reports from last week suggest that the group was able to compromise encryption protections that then allowed the fraudsters to gain access to data on a number of debit cards within the WorldPay automatic payroll system.

Hackers then used the compromised accounts to increase credit limits and create 44 counterfeit debit cards which were then sent around the world to a number of money mules, each of whom used the accounts to access ATMs before sending as much as 70 percent of the money back into the bank hacking operation.

On the rise

Bank hacking remains a massive issue for US regulators, notably having come to a head back in August when bank hacker extraordinaire Ehud Tenenbaum pleaded guilty to a single count of bank-card fraud for having played a key role in a sophisticated computer-based bank hacking scheme that officials believe scored him $10 million from US banks.

From the case last week, the DOJ has estimated that the entire withdrawal run, which took place over a span of 12 hours, resulted in a total of $9 million being withdrawn from over 2000 ATMs.

Reports show that the our main suspects on the case include three alleged bank hackers based in Estonia, Russia, Moldova and a fourth unnamed suspect labelled "Hacker 3". Each have been charged with 16 criminal counts including wire fraud, identity theft, conspiracy and access device fraud.

US district attorney Sally Quillian Yates has warned that "this investigation has broken the back of one of the most sophisticated computer hacking rings in the world."

Yates proudly announced that while last November the financial services industry was rocked by "perhaps the most sophisticated and organised computer fraud attack ever conducted," the leaders of this bank hacking operation have now been charged.

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