$9.5m Stolen in 12 Hours

2009-11-12

RBS WorldPay, an Atlanta-based bank card processor, had $9 million stolen in 12 hours when 8 men connected to an international crime ring gained access to their computer network and retrieved payment card data as it was being processed.

Prosecuters state that one of the men identified a vulnerability that made it possible to illegally access the RBS network. For four days in November of 2008, two of the men involved broke into the system and reverse engineered personal identification numbers (PINs) from the encrypted data on the RBS WorldPay computer network. During this time they were able to obtain 44 payment cards. Court papers reveal that after raising the amount of funds available on the cards, the men dispatched cashiers in 280 cities worldwide to withdraw money from automatic teller machines.

Dan Goodin, The Register, states that the 16-count indictment filed November 10 in Atlanta, is a major victory for federal agents pursuing one of the most brazen and profitable hacking crimes in recent memory.

Four of the suspects appear to have helped mastermind the operation and were charged with wire fraud, computer fraud, access device fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy. If convicted they will face a maximum of over 50 years in federal prison and will be forced to forfeit over $9.4m in proceeds.

Read the full article here.