Dive Brief:
- Roman Seleznev, the son of a Russian lawmaker, was found guilty Thursday in a U.S. court of a massive credit card theft scam, Bloomberg News reported.
- A Seattle federal jury convicted Seleznev of stealing credit card numbers from retail businesses around the globe.
- Seleznev sold the credit card numbers on the internet, allegedly causing $169 million in fraud losses.
Dive Insight:
Prosecutors said Seleznev installed malware on transaction processing systems used by a variety of businesses.
Seleznev is the son of Valery Seleznev, a member of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament. Seleznev was arrested in 2014 after evading authorities for more than 10 years.
A lawyer for Seleznev said he plans to appeal.
Earlier this month, KrebsOnSecurity reported that hackers appear to have breached "hundreds" of Oracle computer systems, including its MICROS point-of-sale credit card payment system. MICROS point-of-sale systems are used at more than 330,000 cash registers worldwide. A Russian cybercrime group is suspected in the attack.
Point of sale attacks have led to thefts of customer data at retailers like Target and Home Depot and at several large hotel chains over the last few years. Omni Hotels & Resorts, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Hyatt Hotels and Trump Hotel Collection all experienced data breaches aimed at consumers' debit and credit card information in the last year.
