More than 160 million stolen credit and debit card numbers were sold globally.
Four Russian nationals and a Ukrainian have been charged with running a hacking organization that during the course of seven years penetrated computer networks of more than a dozen major American and international corporations, including 7-Eleven, the Independent Record reported.
More than a dozen companies, including the Nasdaq Stock Market, J.C. Penny, and JetBlue Airways were among those targeted.
The first criminal charges in the case were filed in the case in 2009, but weren’t made public until Thursday. It isn’t unusual for criminal charges to be filed under seal while an investigation is ongoing, and made public years later, the Wall Street Journal noted.
The indictments were announced Thursday in Newark, N.J. The U.S. attorney noted that it is the largest hacking and data breach scheme ever prosecuted in the U.S.
The hackers conservatively acquired more than 160 million credit and debit card numbers and sold them to resellers globally, causing hundreds of millions in losses to customers and the corporations impacted.
The defendants are Russians Vladimir Drinkman, Aleksander Kalinin, Roman Kotov and Dmitriy Smilianets, and Ukrainian Mikhail Rytikov.