Suspect named in TJX credit card probe

[<rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/articles/2007/08/21/suspect_n
amed_in_tjx_credit_card_probe/

Suspect named in TJX credit card probe
Ukrainian's arrest seen as break in record fraud case
By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff  |  August 21, 2007

Authorities have zeroed in on a Ukrainian man they suspect played a key role
in the sale of many credit card numbers stolen from TJX Cos. in what is
considered the biggest corporate data breach to date.

Officials hope the recent arrest of Maksym Yastremskiy will be a
breakthrough in the investigation of who hacked into systems at TJX and
other companies, said Greg Crabb, a program manager in the global
investigations division of the US Postal Inspection Service. The service is
among various law enforcement agencies trying to track down hackers who made
off with more than 45 million credit and debit card numbers from TJX
starting in 2005.

Crabb said Yastremskiy allegedly sold card numbers through online forums
hosted overseas, sometimes in Cyrillic or that were password protected. He
is likely the largest seller of stolen TJX numbers, Crabb said.

Prices ranged from $20 to $100 per stolen card, and the cards were sold in
batches of up to 10,000, depending on factors like the credit limits of the
consumer accounts being traded. Crabb said Yastremskiy is associated with at
least one other Ukrainian man previously charged with similar crimes, though
unrelated to the TJX case.

"These guys are selling the good stuff," Crabb said.

It's unclear whether Yastremskiy is the mastermind behind the TJX breach
itself. Yastremskiy's capture was first reported several weeks ago, though a
link to TJX hasn't been made until now. Turkish police arrested him at a
nightclub in the resort of Kemer, according to a French summary of a report
by Turkish news agency Anatolia. The agency quoted a police official who
said Yastremskiy is "one of the world's important and well-known computer
pirates."

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