Three indited for stealing 130 million credit card numbers

There were three arrests made on Monday in relation to a group of computer hackers that stole more than 130 million credit card numbers. U.S. authorities said that this is the largest identity theft case that has ever been prosecuted.

The men who were indicted in the case were hacking into the credit card processor Heartland Payment Systems to get the card numbers. Heartland confirmed the breaches, but did not know exactly how big the fraud had one.

The one American arrested in the group is Albert Gonzalez. He is a former government informant and was already in jail in connection with an unrelated hacking case. The other two people named in the indictment are two Russian citizens who have yet to be identified.

Gonzalez is in jail after he was indicted with 10 other people because he was accused of stealing another 41 million credit card numbers from retailers. The largest retailer was TJX Cos, the parent company of TJ Maxx and Marshall’s. That ring of hackers cost retailers an estimated $400 million in damages.

Charges against the three men included conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers, commit fraud in connection with computers and to damage computers, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The three men are each facing up to 35 years in prison along with large fines.

So, the obvious reason to hack into these systems is to get the credit card numbers and sell them to others who want to use the numbers to make other fraudulent purchases. Many credit cards have some kind of protection to protect the owners from fradulent purchases, but what would have happened if 130 million people would have come forward to say that $1,000 in credit card fraud had been committed? There is no way that the credit card bank backers would have been able to pay for that, even though they would have to.

This is just another example if you’re going to spend money, don’t run your bank card as a debit card, run it as a credit card so that you’re protected by Mastercard, Visa, or any other credit company.