TJX Data Criminal Gets Five Years in Prison
Jon Brodkin writes on NetworkWorld:
The leader of an identity theft ring that stole credit card numbers from TJX has been sentenced to five years in prison and fined $600,000.
Irving Escobar of Miami, Fla., pleaded guilty to charges of an “organized scheme to defraud” in March and was sentenced this week, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced Thursday.
Escobar and his team used stolen data to make counterfeit credit cards, which they used to buy gift cards at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. They redeemed the gift cards for jewelry and electronic equipment in what McCollum calls “a modern-day version of money laundering” that resulted in a loss of $3 million nationwide.
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Hackers' Mind-Set: They've Done Nothing Wrong
Jon Swartz writes on USA Today:
Albert Gonzalez appeared to be a reformed hacker. But the onetime government informant was a central character in what Justice Department officials claim was an international cybercrime syndicate that ripped off tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers from large U.S. retailers.
Irving Jose Escobar seemed nothing more than a tough Miami kid with a long rap sheet. Yet last year, he pleaded guilty to his role in a multimillion-dollar scam in Florida tied to Gonzalez's exploit.
What they shared, based on indictments in their separate cases, are key roles in the massive cyberheist at TJX, parent of retailers T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, and the credit card scams that resulted. First disclosed by TJX in January 2007, it is believed to be the largest such theft.
It is unclear whether Gonzalez and Escobar know each other. But each was involved in different scams tied to TJX, according to their respective indictments. The divergent sagas of the hacker Gonzalez and streetwise Escobar represent bookends of the vast digital crime. According to psychiatrists, hackers and computer-security experts, they represent the vanguard of cybercrooks: young, misguided males who rationalize that they've done nothing wrong.
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