FBI says $700K charged in Anonymous' Stratfor attack
During the court case for Jeremy Hammond--the Antisec hacker busted for stealing data in the Stratfor breach--the FBI says charges made with stolen credit card information equals $700,000.
When the Antisec branch of Anonymous hacked into security think tank Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, at the end of December, one of its claims was the theft 200GB worth of data, including e-mails and clients' credit card information.
Days after the hack, the group published 860,000 e-mail addresses and 75,000 unencrypted credit card numbers on the Web.
Now, the FBI's Milan Patel says that between December 6, 2011, and February 2012, "at least $700,000 worth of unauthorized charges were made to credit card accounts that were among those stolen during the Stratfor Hack," according to Internet security news site Security Week.
Stratfor's list of clients whose information was allegedly compromised in the hack includes the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, and Bank of America.
Patel said that the $700,000 figure "does not reflect any of the charges that may have been incurred on cards associated with the Stratfor Hack for which records have not yet been reviewed."This information was made available during this week's court case for Jeremy Hammond--one of the alleged hackers arrested last week by the FBI for the Stratfor attack. According to Security Week, Hammond is being charged with one count of computer hacking conspiracy, one count of computer hacking, and one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. Each of these counts carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Along with the money lost from stolen credit cards, Security Week reports that Stratfor is claiming another $2 million in losses that it had to pay for recovery, lost business claims, and monitoring to protect its clients who had their credit card details exposed.