PCI Blog - Compliance Demystified

Credit card theft indictments show why small crime matters

Many of you are aware and have read the detailed recounts of the recent indictment of many individuals involved in some of the most notorious credit card compromises.  (The BBC article mentions PCI DSS.) Attorney General Michael Mukasey says in a press release that hackers, “targeted at least nine major retail corporations, including the TJX Corporation, whose stores include Marshalls and TJ Maxx; BJ’s Wholesale Club; Barnes and Noble; Sports Authority; Boston Market; Office Max; Dave and Busters restaurants; DSW shoe stores; and Forever 21.”

I’ve written about the credit card laundering underground in the past, and El Mariachi has commented on such with even more information.

My favorite credit card hacker story used to be Roman Vega (Boa Factory), but recently and with current popularity it has turned to Maksym Yastremskiy.  A friend of mine and cybercrime hunter, Gary Warner, writes about the preliminary information regarding this case and a detailed description of the final sentences.  He does a great job of profiling each of the hackers and outlining some of their crimes.

He explains why major hackers like Maksym matter, referencing the forfeiture of this fraudulent assets:

$846,762.18 in E-Gold accounts
$ 87,517.36 in Parex Bank account
$3,781,436.36 in an Asia Universal Bank account
$4,862,884.96 in Western Union money transfers
$1,931,047 in US currency

He also explains why smaller hackers matter, such as the three indicted with Conspiracy to Traffic Unauthorized Access Devices.  They traded only a few credit cards, but those cards resulted in “real dollar losses of $7,000,000!”

The small numbers in Southern California should not be seen as a measure of their insignificance as criminals, but rather as a sign that when you spread multi-million dollar crime around the entire globe, its hard to find one small set of contiguous ZIP Codes that had many losses.

For more information on the Department of Justice reports that Gary links to:

• Albert Gonzalez indictment
• Christopher Scott information
• Damon Patrick Toey information