Three charged for 'significant' US data breach incidents

2009-08-18

An indictment has been returned against three people charged with being responsible for five corporate data breach incidents.

These data breach incidents include one where 130 million credit and debit card numbers, as well as account information, were taken from Heartland Payment Systems and Hannaford Brothers Co.

The scheme is believed to be the biggest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted by the US Department of Justice.

According to the allegations in the indictment, Albert Gonzalez worked with two unnamed co-conspirators to identify potential corporate victims, locating vulnerabilities with physical observation and online exploration.

They would then upload information to servers which were used as hacking platforms, while co-conspirators would use them to store data vital to hacking schemes and to launch attacks, the allegations asserted.

Chief executive officer of Heartland Payment Systems Robert Carr recently told CSO that audits carried out by the firm's Qualified Security Assessors were not of any value in preventing the data breach that hit the company.

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