Colombia Seizes Hacking Ring Pilfering $2 Million

Authorities informed that Colombian Police broke a hacking ring that was being operated by a systems engineer called Omar Ignacio Rosso Buritica from Venezuela that had stolen over $2 Million from banks in 6-month period, as per the news by LA PRENSA on January 7, 2010.

The police stated that Omar Ignacio Rosso Buritica along with five others was caught involved in the act when they were accessing the Colombian databases of Banco Santander and Efecty currency exchange office. Security analyst Yezid Freddy Diaz Mendez, who misused his access to client data was one of the detainees, as per the reports by LA PRENSA on January 7, 2010.

The investigators searched a house in the neighborhood "The Cherry". They got in to the house so reticently that the hackers got no time to maneuver or erase the data they were receiving.

Authorities had tracked these attackers for over six months before busting the ring, which attacked currency exchange offices and banks.

The sources revealed that the hackers implanted a spyware or virus through some storage device with the involvement of an official, who was accountable for connecting the infected USB to a PC in the network.

The police claimed that in this manner, after the virus was downloaded, they were able to distantly access and steal crucial information. This hacking ring ran till the summers of 2009.

Further, the officials have discovered how attackers run computer equipment having access to high speed Internet and executing programs which connected them to various servers in Argentina, Colombia and Spain.

The officials said that the detained attackers will face charges of illegally accessing information systems.

It is remarkable that lately in China too, 11 people were sentenced imprisonment for their participation in making and purveying PC viruses. They also got an overall fine of 833,000 Yuan (US$ 121,980). Several others in the case are expected to get court sentences in coming times.

Related article: Colombian Resident Found Guilty of Identity Theft

» SPAMfighter News - 1/19/2010