U.S. Busts Largest International Hacker Case

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, Fla., for hacking into the networks of major American retail and financial organizations and stealing data relating to more than 130 million credit and debit cards. The case is described as the largest alleged credit and debit card data breach ever charged in the United States.


Gonzalez and his co-conspirators are alleged to have researched the credit and debit card systems used by their victims; devised a sophisticated SQL injection attack to penetrate their networks and steal credit and debit card data; and then sent that data to computer servers they operated in California, Illinois, Latvia, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Gonzalez is currently in federal custody and could face up to 20 years in prison on the wire fraud conspiracy charge and an additional five years in prison on the conspiracy charge, as well as a fine of $250,000 for each charge.
http://www.usdoj.gov