The Heartland Hacker is the Hannaford and TJX Hacker?

"Soup Nazi" Charged with 130 More Million Card Swipes

Various news agencies are reporting that Albert Gonzalez, who is known online
as "soupnazi," was indicted with more charges of credit and debit card hacking.  They say he targeted customers of convenience store giant 7-Eleven
Inc. and supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers, Co. Inc.   In addition, they are claiming he also
targeted Heartland Payment Systems, a New Jersey-based card payment
processor.  Gonzalez has been in the police custody since the May of 2008, when he
had been arrested in connection to another prominent data theft at the
Dave & Buster’s restaurant chain, and is presently awaiting his
trial for the case.  I've done several posts on Gonzalez...search the HomeATM Blog for "Hackers 11" to read past posts.



According to reports, on Monday, federal prosecutors have charged Gonzalez in the theft of 130 million  credit and debit card numbers. The "soup nazi" has been indicted with the highest number of credit/debit card theft in the history of the United States.  He also held the previous record with the 40 million stolen from TJX.



It is estimated that "he swiped" about 130 million accounts; this amount adds in to the previous pile of 40 million that he had already stolen. Two other unnamed Russian assailants are being sought in the case, but it is clearly Gonzalez, who is the mastermind behind the entire swiping operations.

According
to the indictment, Gonazalez and his two Russian co-conspirators would
hack into corporate computer networks and secretly place "malware," or
malicious software, that would allow them backdoor access to the
networks later to steal data.  With the TJX breached they used a method called "wardriving."  (see Wardriving 101)

After they stole the data, an unspecified amount of the stolen credit/ debit card numbers were sold online. Some of the cards were also used to make a number of unauthorized purchases and withdrawals from banks. The complete indictment has been filed in the United States District Court in Newark.





Here's more from the Wall Street Journal:

Arrest in Epic Cyber Swindle 

By SIOBHAN
GORMAN

A 28-year-old American, believed by prosecutors to be one of the nation's
cybercrime kingpins, was indicted Monday along with two Russian accomplices on
charges that they carried out the largest hacking and identity-theft caper in
U.S. history.



Federal prosecutors alleged the three masterminded a global scheme to steal
data from more than 130 million credit and debit cards by hacking into the
computer systems of five major companies, including Hannaford Bros.
supermarkets, 7-Eleven
and Heartland Payment Systems Inc., a credit-card processing company.

U.S. Secret Service courtesy of wired.com

Photo of Albert Gonzalez released to wired.com by Secret
Service

The indictment in federal district court in New Jersey marks the latest and largest in at least five years of crime that has brought its alleged orchestrator, Albert Gonzalez of Miami, in and out of federal grasp. Detained in 2003, Mr. Gonzalez was briefly an informant to the Secret Service before he allegedly returned to commit even bolder crimes.

Authorities have previously alleged that Mr. Gonzalez was the ringleader of a data breach that siphoned off more than 40 million credit-card numbers from TJX Cos. and others in recent years, costing the parent company of the TJ Maxx retail chain about $200 million.

Mr. Gonzalez is in federal custody in Brooklyn, N.Y., awaiting trial for alleged efforts to hack into the network of the national restaurant chain Dave & Buster's Inc. He also faces charges in Boston in the TJX matter.

The alleged thefts in Monday's indictment took place from October 2006 to May 2008.

Mr. Gonzalez is "a very important player in a sophisticated ring that has real results at the street level of bank, retail, debit- and credit-card fraud," said Seth Kosto, an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey who specializes in computer fraud.

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