Epic Cyber Swindle - Albert Gonzalez

19 August 2009 by Jeff Hayes.

Many people in the infosec space have a secret admiration of hackers. They appreciate their technical skills — their abilities to circumvent the defenses of networks and computers systems. But when hacking turns to the criminal type, admiration should go out the windows.

When a cyber crime makes the cover the WSJ, that is telling of its roll in business and the national and international economies. From the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, 18 August 2009:

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 Supermarkets, 7-Eleven and Heartland Payment Systems, a credit-card processing company.

 

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.

Gonzalez has been in custody in New York for his role in a hack into Dave and Buster Inc.’s network as well as the well-publicized TJX credit card number theft.

There should be no admiration of cyber thieves — crackers as some call them.  They increase the cost of everything we consume. Whether is it extra defensive measures, extensive audits, costly insurance policies, PR-related repercussions, not to mention the cost associated with identify theft, ill-paid-for merchandise, consumer credit problems, breach notifications, etc., the anti-social behavior impacts us all.

Gonzalez and his associates are thieves, pure and simple.They should get the same punishment as an armed bank robber. Their goals are the same: theft. Only the means differ.

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