U.S. Agent Lures Romanian Hackers in Subway Data Heist

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-17/u-s-agent-lures-romanian-hackers-in-subway-data-heist.html

By Del Quentin Wilber
Bloomberg
April 16, 2014

U.S. Secret Service Agent Matt O'Neill was growing nervous. For three 
months, he'd been surreptitiously monitoring hackers' communications and 
watching as they siphoned thousands of credit card numbers from scores of 
U.S. retailers.

Most every day O'Neill was alerting a credit card company or retailer to 
an online heist. The result was predictable: the companies canceled 
hijacked credit and debit cards and the aggravated hackers' customers 
began complaining that the stolen card numbers weren't working as 
promised.

It was only a matter of time before the cyber thieves realized they were 
being watched.

"We were hoping they wouldn't figure it out until we could catch them," 
O’Neill said.

The Secret Service and FBI are investigating an increasing number of 
attacks on U.S. retailers’ data, including the massive breach of Target 
Corp. (TGT) last year that affected more than 40 million debit and credit 
card accounts. Investigators won't talk about the Target probe. Instead, 
the Secret Service pointed to O'Neill's investigation that began in 2010 
as an example of how they go about solving such crimes.

[...]

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