"The Analyzer" hacks banks for $10 millionA recently released affadavit by a Canadian policeman details how Ehud Tenenbaum, an Israeli hacker arrested in Canada last year for allegedly stealing about $1.5 million from Canadian banks, also allegedly hacked two U.S. banks, a credit and debit card distribution company and a payment processor, resulting in at least $10 million in losses. Tenenbaum became famous as "The Analyzer" 10 years ago when he was arrested for breaching more than 400 Pentagon computers. Tennebaum was caught this time because he carelessly did not hide his IP address when conducting chat sessions with his fellow criminals. Police were monitoring those sessions and were able to locate Tennebaum based on the registered information for the IP address he was using.
The current scam is being referred to by law enforcement as the "PIN Cashout Conspiracy". Tenenbaum first used SQL injection to break into a financial institution's network. Once in the network, he found the database containing debit card information and collected information for the debit cards he planned to have cashed out. If necessary he would alter the PINs for those cards. Tenenbaum outsourced the actual cashing out by selling the card data to associates in Russia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Canada, and the U.S. Tenenbaum was paid about 10 to 20 percent of the total take.
For a more in-depth look at this story, including the names of the involved institutions, please see this Wired.com article and Gary Warner's analysis.
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