POS Fraud: How Hackers Strike

Four Romanian suspects were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this month for their alleged connection to a multimillion-dollar point-of-sale fraud scheme. [See Four Romanians Charged for POS Fraud.]

Investigators believe hundreds of U.S. merchants, including 150 Subway franchises, and more than 80,000 U.S. consumers were likely victims.

The defendants are accused of war-driving - a hacking method that involves remotely scanning for open or vulnerable Internet connections to POS systems. Once a weak system was detected, the four allegedly hacked internal computers and installed keylogging software onto the POS systems. In many cases, according to the indictment, they also installed Trojans, which allowed them ongoing access to the systems, giving them the ability to install and re-install malware over time.

Between 2008 and May 2011, Adrian-Tiberiu Oprea, 27, Iulian Dolan, 27, Cezar Iulian Butu, 26, and Florin Radu, 23, are believed to have remotely hacked POS and checkout systems to steal credit, debit and prepaid card data. According to the charges, card data they compromised resulted in millions of dollars in unauthorized transactions.

Posted in: Account Takeover Identity Theft Collusive Networks Deposit Account Fraud ACH and Wire Fraud Credit Card Fraud Debit Card Fraud