Cyber Crime News

President Obama's Top Cyber Security Director Resigns
The acting cyber czar for the Obama administration has resigned. Melissa Hathaway said she was leaving the post for personal reasons. President Barack Obama outlined his cyber security plans in May 2009, announcing in a speech that he intended to create a White House cyber security post - a position that he has not filled yet.

Largest Cyber Crime in U.S History Solved
Twenty-eight-year-old Albert Gonzalez of Miami, Florida has been indicted for what is being called the largest hacking and identity-theft caper in U.S. history. On August 16, 2009, federal prosecutors alleged that Gonzalez and two Russian accomplices masterminded a global cyber-crime scheme to steal data from more than 130 million credit and debit cards by hacking into the computer systems of five major companies, which included Hannaford Bros. supermarkets, 7-Eleven and Heartland Payment Systems Inc., a credit-card processing company.

Gonzalez wasn’t charged in an earlier cyber-crime case since he became an informant to the U.S. Secret Service. But the brazen Gonzalez then returned to commit the larger-scale crimes he is now charged with. He faces up to 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines

Russian's Organized Crime Paved Way For Cyber Crime
In a presentation at BlackHat USA 2009, Dmitri Alperovitch, a McAfee Internet threat researcher, said that Russia’s history of organized crime has helped nurture the birth of sophisticated cyber crime organizations that have lead the way in the emergence of Internet worms, botnets, spamming, phishing and credit card forums.

 The "ease of doing business," as Alperovitch puts it, has facilitated a reported 275,000 incidents in 2008, translating to about $265 million lost in the U.S.

 Russian cyber crime has its roots in software piracy. But, cyber crime took off following a 1994 Citibank hack linked to St. Petersburg, Russia that allowed the attackers to access more than $10 million via the telephone system.

 BUSTED: Recent Cyber Crime Arrests/Convictions

The Feds Zero in on Cyber Criminals
The U.S. government is busting cyber criminals under the name “Bot Roast.” It refers to botnets, which are a group of software robots that are used to do things like commit identity theft and install malicious software that logs users' keystrokes to later steal personal information.

The Bot Roast program has caught cyber criminals responsible for more than $20 million in economic losses to computer users. The FBI has caught eight people who have either been indicted, pled guilty or sentenced for botnet-related crimes. There have also been 13 search warrantsserved in the U.S. and by overseas law-enforcement partners in connection with the Bot Roast operation.

Dozens Charged With Running Computer Crime Ring
Federal authorities in New Haven, Connecticut and Los Angeles, California have charged dozens of people with running an international computer crime ring responsible for stealing personal financial information from thousands of computer users and hundreds of their financial institutions.

 The Justice Department announce the major cyber crime bust May, 2009. The culprits were mostly from Romania, but also included people from the United States, Canada, Portugal and Pakistan.

Seven citizens of Romania were named in the New Haven indictment after they allegedly targeted customers of a Bridgeport-based People's Bank and other institutions.

 The fraudulent People's Bank e-mail read: “For your security, the profile that you are using to access People's Bank Online Banking has been locked because of too many failed login attempts." It gave recipients options to unlock their accounts that included transmitting credit and debit card account numbers, Social Security numbers and personal identification codes.

Mortgage Clerk Charged with Computer Fraud
Houston, Texas resident Jodie Hoang, 34, has been charged with computer fraud. The charges were announced by U. S. Attorney Jim Letten, which allege that Hoang, an accounting clerk at Standard Mortgage Corporation in New Orleans, Louisiana, used the company's computer system to changed the deposit code for payments made by customers at mortgage closings. She then created checks payable to herself or her credit card providers.

 If convicted, Hoang faces up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and be placed on a term of supervised release after imprisonment for a period of up to three years. She could also be ordered to pay restitution to Standard Mortgage Corporation.

Miami Man Sentenced for Computer Fraud
Lesmany Nunez, 30, was sentenced on July 19, 2009 to 12 months and one day imprisonment after pleading guilty to computer fraud. Nunez was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release, with a special condition that he perform 100 hours of community service by lecturing young people on the implications of hacking into other people’s computers and networks. Nunez was also ordered to pay $31,560 in restitution.

Nunez was a former computer support technician at Quantum Technology Partners (QTP), located in Miami-Dade County Florida. According to the proceedings, Nunez accessed QTP’s network remotely without authorization, using an administrator account and password.

 As a result of the unauthorized access to the system and the deletion of data, QTP suffered over $30,000 in damages

Spam Software Designer Faces Six Year in Prison
Last month David Patton, 49, of Centreville, Virginia pleaded guilty in federal court for his role in creating and marketing software designed and used to send bulk commercial spam e-mails in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act.

 Patton admitted that he designed the program to enable its users to insert false headers on spam e-mails it sent, a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act. Patton faces up to six years in prison.