In the first operation, hackers infiltrated the system of an unnamed Indian credit-card processing company that handles Visa and MasterCard prepaid debit cards. Such companies are attractive to cybercriminals because they are considered less secure than financial institutions, computer security experts say.
The hackers, who are not named in the indictment, then raised the withdrawal limits on prepaid MasterCard debit accounts issued by the National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah, also known as RakBank, which is in United Arab Emirates.
So they raised the withdrawal limits, but shouldn’t it have set off alarms if they tried to withdraw more than the amount on the prepaid card? Or did the people involved change that as well?
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With five account numbers in hand, the hackers distributed the information to individuals in 20 countries who then encoded the information on magnetic-stripe cards. On Dec. 21, the cashing crews made 4,500 A.T.M. transactions worldwide, stealing $5 million, according to the indictment.
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After securing 12 account numbers for cards issued by the Bank of Muscat in Oman and raising the withdrawal limits, the cashing crews were set in motion. Starting at 3 p.m., the crews made 36,000 transactions and withdrew about $40 million from machines in the various countries in about 10 hours. In New York City, a team of eight people made 2,904 withdrawals, stealing $2.4 million.
The Times notes this is bigger than Lufthansa. And no guns were involved (at least in the initial heist: one of the people alleged to be behind it was shot dead later on). As a connoisseur of hacks and heists, my hat is off to these guys.
Remember our old friends the Zeta cartel, and their plan to launder money by purchasing quarter horses? Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, not guilty.
Jesus Huitron, an Austin homebuilder and painter, was found not guilty. But José Treviño Morales, brother of two principal leaders within the organization, and three co-defendants were found to have poured millions of dirty dollars from the Zetas cartel into the U.S. quarter horse industry to hide their illicit origins.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 10th, 2013 at 8:46 am and is filed under Clippings, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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