"Carders" (from the English word "card") are criminals who specialize in illegal activities in the field of turnover of plastic cards – documents on a machine storage medium and their banking details (numbers).
MILLIONS ON FAKE CARDS
The scale of activity of modern carders is impressive. For example, in March 2010, it was reported that the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation detained Viktor Pleshchuk from St. Petersburg, whom the investigation considers one of the organizers of the theft of $ 9 million from the Royal Bank of Scotland. An international criminal group, which included Pleshchuk, in 2008 hacked the computer network of RBS WorldPay, a bank card service company that is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Using the information obtained as a result of hacking, carders managed to withdraw $ 9 million in less than 12 hours from more than 2 thousand ATMs in 280 cities around the world. In November 2009, the FBI, together with the Estonian Police, arrested four other participants in the robbery. The Russian members of the criminal group were lucky, Evgeny Anikin and Viktor Pleshchuk were tried in their homeland and sentenced to 3 and 6 years in prison, respectively, and even then conditionally. In America, they would have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
But the official record holder among carders is considered to be an American webmaster specializing in pornography, Kenneth Tavis, who single-handedly committed the largest credit card fraud, stealing $ 38 million. Tavis gained access to the Charter Pacific credit card numbers of nearly 4 million people. And although he used only 800,000 credit card numbers from them, withdrawing $ 19.95 a month from each account . But even that was enough for Kenneth to steal a record amount.
EXPANDING AND MULTIPLYING
The number of carders we have is multiplying every day. But the number of people convicted of forgery of plastic cards is also increasing accordingly.
The activity of Ukrainian carder Anatoly Bandilko has gained great popularity in Europe. He managed to put together an international group, which included about two dozen people from among Russians, Poles, Ukrainians and Germans, and organize its work in a number of European countries to eviscerate bank accounts of citizens by forging their credit cards.
According to one version, an employee of one of the European banks provided him with access to codes and credit card data, according to another – a hacker from Munich. Whoever this accomplice was, he had no value in the Bandilco group. Anatoly transmitted the data received from him to Kiev, where reliable lads made the plastic base of the card-a duplicate of a foreigner. However, it didn't look like the original one at all, but it was possible to withdraw money using it at an ATM. When the German police, thanks to information from the Moscow Police Department, managed to arrest more than 10 members of the Bandilko group in Munich, the accused were proved to have embezzled more than $ 1 million. The detained fraudsters received 3 or more years in prison, but Anatoly then managed to avoid punishment.
Got caught two years later. He was caught red-handed in Moscow, when he was withdrawing money from an ATM at the Intourist hotel on Tverskaya using a fake card. During the search, another 82 cards were found in his possession, with about $ 3 million in debit accounts. And in Bandilko's room at the Molodezhnaya Hotel, UBEP officers found several dozen more fake credit cards and computer equipment for their production.
DANILA - THE MASTER
Fortunately, carders are not as active in the Sverdlovsk Region as they are in the United States, Western Europe, and Moscow. However, Sverdlovsk operatives have already proved that they can successfully resist them, quickly solving the almost perfect crime of forgery of plastic cards of the Severnaya Kazna bank.
On Monday, January 17, 2000, employees of Severnaya Kazna found out that their bank had lost 1 million 354 thousand 697 rubles in just the previous two days off. By 1,153,320 rubles more was received in cash at ATMs than debited from accounts. And another 156,877 rubles more money was withdrawn by card through retail terminals in stores in Yekaterinburg. At this rate of theft, any bank, even the world's largest, would soon burst like a balloon. Therefore, all forces were thrown into the search for intruders.
Employees of the Regional Department of Internal Affairs Igor Boys and Sergey Lyapustin almost did not sleep for three days, unraveling this crime, but by the morning of January 19, they identified all the intruders and soon they were detained in Novouralsk.
The crime they committed was based on the unfulfilled ambitions of 25-year-old computer scientist Danila Gorozhanin, who worked as an electronic engineer in the Novouralsk branch of Severnaya Kazna Bank. He once remarked to his management that the protection of the bank's plastic cards is by no means perfect. On this he was offered not to be clever. Daniel explained that the protection was developed by American specialists, who are considered the best electronics engineers in the world, who are not his match. However, the citizen passionately wanted to prove to everyone that he understands electronics as well as the vaunted Americans. However, the method for this he chose is not the most successful.....
Gradually, the idea of robbing a bank turned into an obsession for Danila, which Roman Senyukov, Dmitry Starchenkov and Evgeny Katasonov volunteered to help him implement.
The members of the criminal group had many things in common: they were all young, lived in the same city and had no prejudices about how to get rich. The citizen in this group was assigned the position of a "think tank", which should work on a computer and not get its hands dirty with rough work. And Danila tried to prove to his accomplices that he was not some lamer, but a real hacker. On his home computer, he hacked the program of a stolen bank terminal and obtained the encrypted code of the Kirovgrad branch of Severnaya Zvezda Bank, indicating the location of operations with plastic cards. After committing theft, he intended to direct the investigation on the wrong path. Meanwhile, his comrades organized the opening of accounts for figureheads to receive plastic cards. After that, Danila-the master reprogrammed the cards passed to him. For each of them, he made an additional 800 thousand rubles and 50 thousand dollars. The appetite of the criminals turned out to be enviable. Only on five forged cards they intended to deprive the bank of more than 12 million rubles.
A massive attack on ATMs of the Northern Treasury was carried out by fraudsters over the weekend. Visits of the criminal group were recorded in Novouralsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil, Kirovgrad and Pyshma. ATMs hummed and counted out huge amounts of money into the hands of fraudsters. In two days, four unknown Novouralsk boys became richer by a million. The mountain of cash was pleasantly pleasing to the eye and I didn't want to part with it. However, I had to.
No matter how hard the attackers tried to confuse their tracks, they did not manage to evade responsibility. Just for two days and two nights, they felt rich. And on the third day, the joyous euphoria was replaced by deep sadness for them – they were all detained.
Danila, the master, was particularly impressed by the appearance of the police officers. He froze in place, as if he saw the Mistress of copper Mountain in front of him. To the homegrown computer genius, it seemed that he had committed the perfect crime. And no one would be smart enough to guess that a lowly electronics engineer was behind the theft. However, I miscalculated. The perfect crime that he had been preparing for at least half a year was solved in two days.
During the investigation of the criminal case, most of the stolen funds were found. The damage to the bank was mostly compensated. And the specialists of Severnaya Kazna, after analyzing the actions of criminals, managed to improve their plastic cards, providing them with additional protection against unauthorized access.
Then there was the trial. The hacker citizen was assigned compulsory medical measures, but his accomplices were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
There are quite a few computer smarts like Gorozhanin in Russia. And, alas, many of them have put their talents to use in the wrong field.
CARDER CARDER - WOLF
Among carders, there are wolf laws, as demonstrated by the founder of the international "carder exchange" Albert Gonzalez, who lured his colleagues into his community, and then handed them over to the police.
The son of Cuban immigrants, Gonzalez from Miami was imbued with a love of computers at the age of 8. And at school he became the leader of the "nerds", turned on computers. At the age of 17, he first came to the attention of the FBI when he and two school friends hacked into Indian government servers and left some unflattering comments about Indian culture. At that time, he got off with a warning and excommunication from the computer for six months.
After going from hacker to computer bully, Gonzalez decided to retrain to carder, a computer thief. Together with a group of like-minded people, he created the Shadowcrew community on the World Wide web, where carders negotiated the purchase and sale of large quantities of stolen credit card data and their owners. However, he soon came to the attention of the FBI and, in order to remain at large, agreed to "knock" on other members of the community. Thanks to his information, on October 26, 2004, 26 of the most active members of the Karder community were arrested around the world, and Shadowcrew itself ceased to exist. For snitching, Albert received 75 thousand dollars a year from the US government. But he wanted more.
Secretly from the FBI, he decided to make money "for a rainy day" and together with a group of accomplices came up with a scheme to steal personal data of retail customers. Among hackers, the operation was secretly called "Get rich or die trying".
Gonzalez and his accomplices used a specially written sniffer program to steal data on 170 million credit and debit cards and the identities of their owners. They sold this data to other carders who had already withdrawn money from other people's bank cards. Gonzalez was getting rich. He bought himself an apartment in Miami, a car, several pairs of Rolex watches, a Tiffany ring for his girlfriend, and other expensive items. When he was arrested, they found about half a million dollars in cash at his home, and another million was dug up from the lawn in the backyard of Gonzalez's parents.
The ideologue of illegal penetration into corporate networks and the founder of the international "carder exchange" Albert Gonzalez again tried to negotiate with the authorities, but they did not make a deal. March 25, 2010, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
SACRIFICE OF FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS
Carder Max Ray Butler, also known as Max Ray Vision and Iceman, also opened his own platform for collecting and selling credit card information called CardersMarket.
In two days, Max Ray Vision hacked into four major competing websites, stole all important information, and erased databases. Thus, he received an audience of six thousand people and a lot of data on credit cards. But having become a monopolist, Max simply did not have time to become an oligarch. It was invested by the FBI and its partners in carding activities.
Butler-Vision was arrested on September 5, 2007. 1.8 million credit card numbers were found on his home computers. Max's card numbers were used to track transactions worth $ 86 million. In total, 10 thousand financial organizations and institutions were affected by carder's actions.
As a result, Max Ray Vision was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for hacking computer networks and stealing credit card numbers. At that time, this was the longest sentence for hacking in the United States. In addition, Butler was ordered to pay bankers and financiers compensation in the amount of $ 27.5 million, based on the fact that replacing one stolen card costs $ 25.
Carders steal millions, but they also get rather long sentences. So, perhaps it's time for them to think about whether the game is worth the candle?
(c) Oleg Loginov
MILLIONS ON FAKE CARDS
The scale of activity of modern carders is impressive. For example, in March 2010, it was reported that the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation detained Viktor Pleshchuk from St. Petersburg, whom the investigation considers one of the organizers of the theft of $ 9 million from the Royal Bank of Scotland. An international criminal group, which included Pleshchuk, in 2008 hacked the computer network of RBS WorldPay, a bank card service company that is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Using the information obtained as a result of hacking, carders managed to withdraw $ 9 million in less than 12 hours from more than 2 thousand ATMs in 280 cities around the world. In November 2009, the FBI, together with the Estonian Police, arrested four other participants in the robbery. The Russian members of the criminal group were lucky, Evgeny Anikin and Viktor Pleshchuk were tried in their homeland and sentenced to 3 and 6 years in prison, respectively, and even then conditionally. In America, they would have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
But the official record holder among carders is considered to be an American webmaster specializing in pornography, Kenneth Tavis, who single-handedly committed the largest credit card fraud, stealing $ 38 million. Tavis gained access to the Charter Pacific credit card numbers of nearly 4 million people. And although he used only 800,000 credit card numbers from them, withdrawing $ 19.95 a month from each account . But even that was enough for Kenneth to steal a record amount.
EXPANDING AND MULTIPLYING
The number of carders we have is multiplying every day. But the number of people convicted of forgery of plastic cards is also increasing accordingly.
The activity of Ukrainian carder Anatoly Bandilko has gained great popularity in Europe. He managed to put together an international group, which included about two dozen people from among Russians, Poles, Ukrainians and Germans, and organize its work in a number of European countries to eviscerate bank accounts of citizens by forging their credit cards.
According to one version, an employee of one of the European banks provided him with access to codes and credit card data, according to another – a hacker from Munich. Whoever this accomplice was, he had no value in the Bandilco group. Anatoly transmitted the data received from him to Kiev, where reliable lads made the plastic base of the card-a duplicate of a foreigner. However, it didn't look like the original one at all, but it was possible to withdraw money using it at an ATM. When the German police, thanks to information from the Moscow Police Department, managed to arrest more than 10 members of the Bandilko group in Munich, the accused were proved to have embezzled more than $ 1 million. The detained fraudsters received 3 or more years in prison, but Anatoly then managed to avoid punishment.
Got caught two years later. He was caught red-handed in Moscow, when he was withdrawing money from an ATM at the Intourist hotel on Tverskaya using a fake card. During the search, another 82 cards were found in his possession, with about $ 3 million in debit accounts. And in Bandilko's room at the Molodezhnaya Hotel, UBEP officers found several dozen more fake credit cards and computer equipment for their production.
DANILA - THE MASTER
Fortunately, carders are not as active in the Sverdlovsk Region as they are in the United States, Western Europe, and Moscow. However, Sverdlovsk operatives have already proved that they can successfully resist them, quickly solving the almost perfect crime of forgery of plastic cards of the Severnaya Kazna bank.
On Monday, January 17, 2000, employees of Severnaya Kazna found out that their bank had lost 1 million 354 thousand 697 rubles in just the previous two days off. By 1,153,320 rubles more was received in cash at ATMs than debited from accounts. And another 156,877 rubles more money was withdrawn by card through retail terminals in stores in Yekaterinburg. At this rate of theft, any bank, even the world's largest, would soon burst like a balloon. Therefore, all forces were thrown into the search for intruders.
Employees of the Regional Department of Internal Affairs Igor Boys and Sergey Lyapustin almost did not sleep for three days, unraveling this crime, but by the morning of January 19, they identified all the intruders and soon they were detained in Novouralsk.
The crime they committed was based on the unfulfilled ambitions of 25-year-old computer scientist Danila Gorozhanin, who worked as an electronic engineer in the Novouralsk branch of Severnaya Kazna Bank. He once remarked to his management that the protection of the bank's plastic cards is by no means perfect. On this he was offered not to be clever. Daniel explained that the protection was developed by American specialists, who are considered the best electronics engineers in the world, who are not his match. However, the citizen passionately wanted to prove to everyone that he understands electronics as well as the vaunted Americans. However, the method for this he chose is not the most successful.....
Gradually, the idea of robbing a bank turned into an obsession for Danila, which Roman Senyukov, Dmitry Starchenkov and Evgeny Katasonov volunteered to help him implement.
The members of the criminal group had many things in common: they were all young, lived in the same city and had no prejudices about how to get rich. The citizen in this group was assigned the position of a "think tank", which should work on a computer and not get its hands dirty with rough work. And Danila tried to prove to his accomplices that he was not some lamer, but a real hacker. On his home computer, he hacked the program of a stolen bank terminal and obtained the encrypted code of the Kirovgrad branch of Severnaya Zvezda Bank, indicating the location of operations with plastic cards. After committing theft, he intended to direct the investigation on the wrong path. Meanwhile, his comrades organized the opening of accounts for figureheads to receive plastic cards. After that, Danila-the master reprogrammed the cards passed to him. For each of them, he made an additional 800 thousand rubles and 50 thousand dollars. The appetite of the criminals turned out to be enviable. Only on five forged cards they intended to deprive the bank of more than 12 million rubles.
A massive attack on ATMs of the Northern Treasury was carried out by fraudsters over the weekend. Visits of the criminal group were recorded in Novouralsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil, Kirovgrad and Pyshma. ATMs hummed and counted out huge amounts of money into the hands of fraudsters. In two days, four unknown Novouralsk boys became richer by a million. The mountain of cash was pleasantly pleasing to the eye and I didn't want to part with it. However, I had to.
No matter how hard the attackers tried to confuse their tracks, they did not manage to evade responsibility. Just for two days and two nights, they felt rich. And on the third day, the joyous euphoria was replaced by deep sadness for them – they were all detained.
Danila, the master, was particularly impressed by the appearance of the police officers. He froze in place, as if he saw the Mistress of copper Mountain in front of him. To the homegrown computer genius, it seemed that he had committed the perfect crime. And no one would be smart enough to guess that a lowly electronics engineer was behind the theft. However, I miscalculated. The perfect crime that he had been preparing for at least half a year was solved in two days.
During the investigation of the criminal case, most of the stolen funds were found. The damage to the bank was mostly compensated. And the specialists of Severnaya Kazna, after analyzing the actions of criminals, managed to improve their plastic cards, providing them with additional protection against unauthorized access.
Then there was the trial. The hacker citizen was assigned compulsory medical measures, but his accomplices were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
There are quite a few computer smarts like Gorozhanin in Russia. And, alas, many of them have put their talents to use in the wrong field.
CARDER CARDER - WOLF
Among carders, there are wolf laws, as demonstrated by the founder of the international "carder exchange" Albert Gonzalez, who lured his colleagues into his community, and then handed them over to the police.
The son of Cuban immigrants, Gonzalez from Miami was imbued with a love of computers at the age of 8. And at school he became the leader of the "nerds", turned on computers. At the age of 17, he first came to the attention of the FBI when he and two school friends hacked into Indian government servers and left some unflattering comments about Indian culture. At that time, he got off with a warning and excommunication from the computer for six months.
After going from hacker to computer bully, Gonzalez decided to retrain to carder, a computer thief. Together with a group of like-minded people, he created the Shadowcrew community on the World Wide web, where carders negotiated the purchase and sale of large quantities of stolen credit card data and their owners. However, he soon came to the attention of the FBI and, in order to remain at large, agreed to "knock" on other members of the community. Thanks to his information, on October 26, 2004, 26 of the most active members of the Karder community were arrested around the world, and Shadowcrew itself ceased to exist. For snitching, Albert received 75 thousand dollars a year from the US government. But he wanted more.
Secretly from the FBI, he decided to make money "for a rainy day" and together with a group of accomplices came up with a scheme to steal personal data of retail customers. Among hackers, the operation was secretly called "Get rich or die trying".
Gonzalez and his accomplices used a specially written sniffer program to steal data on 170 million credit and debit cards and the identities of their owners. They sold this data to other carders who had already withdrawn money from other people's bank cards. Gonzalez was getting rich. He bought himself an apartment in Miami, a car, several pairs of Rolex watches, a Tiffany ring for his girlfriend, and other expensive items. When he was arrested, they found about half a million dollars in cash at his home, and another million was dug up from the lawn in the backyard of Gonzalez's parents.
The ideologue of illegal penetration into corporate networks and the founder of the international "carder exchange" Albert Gonzalez again tried to negotiate with the authorities, but they did not make a deal. March 25, 2010, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
SACRIFICE OF FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS
Carder Max Ray Butler, also known as Max Ray Vision and Iceman, also opened his own platform for collecting and selling credit card information called CardersMarket.
In two days, Max Ray Vision hacked into four major competing websites, stole all important information, and erased databases. Thus, he received an audience of six thousand people and a lot of data on credit cards. But having become a monopolist, Max simply did not have time to become an oligarch. It was invested by the FBI and its partners in carding activities.
Butler-Vision was arrested on September 5, 2007. 1.8 million credit card numbers were found on his home computers. Max's card numbers were used to track transactions worth $ 86 million. In total, 10 thousand financial organizations and institutions were affected by carder's actions.
As a result, Max Ray Vision was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for hacking computer networks and stealing credit card numbers. At that time, this was the longest sentence for hacking in the United States. In addition, Butler was ordered to pay bankers and financiers compensation in the amount of $ 27.5 million, based on the fact that replacing one stolen card costs $ 25.
Carders steal millions, but they also get rather long sentences. So, perhaps it's time for them to think about whether the game is worth the candle?
(c) Oleg Loginov
