http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-17/u-s-agent-lures-romanian-hackers-in-subway-data-heist.html
By Del Quentin Wilber
Bloomberg
April 16, 2014
U.S. Secret Service Agent Matt O'Neill was growing nervous. For three
months, he'd been surreptitiously monitoring hackers' communications and
watching as they siphoned thousands of credit card numbers from scores of
U.S. retailers.
Most every day O'Neill was alerting a credit card company or retailer to
an online heist. The result was predictable: the companies canceled
hijacked credit and debit cards and the aggravated hackers' customers
began complaining that the stolen card numbers weren't working as
promised.
It was only a matter of time before the cyber thieves realized they were
being watched.
"We were hoping they wouldn't figure it out until we could catch them,"
O’Neill said.
The Secret Service and FBI are investigating an increasing number of
attacks on U.S. retailers’ data, including the massive breach of Target
Corp. (TGT) last year that affected more than 40 million debit and credit
card accounts. Investigators won't talk about the Target probe. Instead,
the Secret Service pointed to O'Neill's investigation that began in 2010
as an example of how they go about solving such crimes.
[...]
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