Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC
This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Between 2005 and 2007, Albert Gonzalez and co-conspirators hacked into payment systems at numerous retailers and stole data on what is estimated to be between 40 million and 90 million payment cards. Victims include TJX Companies, BJ's Wholesale Club, Sports Authority, Barnes & Noble, and Heartland Payment Systems. Gonzalez and his group sold the stolen card data to other criminals, with the resulting fraud impacting some 250 financial institutions.
Early in his criminal career, Gonzalez, now 38 years old, was given an opportunity to work as an informant for the US Secret Service for $75,000 per year. It was while he was in this role that he began pulling off the attacks against the retailers, leading to his arrest in May 2008. Gonzalez, who is reputed to have once thrown himself a $75,000 birthday bash, is currently serving a sentence of 20 years and one day at FCI Yazoo City, in Mississippi. His remains one of the longest sentences handed down in connection with a computer crime in the United States.
Image Source: US Secret Service
7 New Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities That Could Put Your Enterprise at RiskIn this Dark Reading Tech Digest, we look at the ways security researchers and ethical hackers find critical vulnerabilities and offer insights into how you can fix them before attackers can exploit them.
The Changing Face of Threat Intelligence
This special report takes a look at how enterprises are using threat intelligence, as well as emerging best practices for integrating threat intel into security operations and incident response. Download it today!
Tweet This
17 Comments
