Fergie's Tech Blog

Three Charged with International Bank Trojan Scheme

Kevin Poulsen writes on Threat Level:

Two U.S. men and a Russian face conspiracy and bank fraud charges for allegedly running a successful scheme to compromise online banking and brokerage accounts and help themselves to the cash.

In a 15-month-long caper that ended in December of last year, prosecutors say Alexander Bobnev, of Volgograd, worked with others in Russia to infect U.S. consumers with Trojan horses that let the gang swipe the victims' login credentials.

Bobnev then initiated wire transfers from the hacked bank accounts -- and liquidated stocks from compromised brokerage accounts -- and channeled the money to "drop" accounts in the U.S., according to federal indictments filed last week in Manhattan.

Opening the drop accounts and pulling out the cash was allegedly the job of Aleksey Volynskiy, of Manhattan, and Alexey Mineev from Hampton, New Hampshire, who got to keep a portion of the loot for their efforts, according to the government.

posted by Fergie @ 12/05/2008 05:00:00 PM