Soup Nazi Steals 130 Million Credit Card Numbers

Albert Gonzalez a well known hacker out of Miami has been charged with a record breaking theft of over 130 million credit card numbers. This is the most numbers ever stolen at one time, breaking the old mark also set by Mr. Gonzalez.

According to The Miami Herald’s article “Miami Hacker Accused of Record Credit Card Theft”; Gonzalez, known as “soupnazi” in hacking circles after the popular character from an episode of Seinfeld, stole the numbers through a technique called “SQL injection”. After breaking into the systems to get the numbers, the data would then be sent to California, Illinois, Latvia, The Netherlands and The Ukraine. In those locales, the numbers would be printed onto new cards, which would then be sold to unscrupulous buyers in cafes and nightclubs around the world.

This isn’t the first time for Albert either. In 2003 he avoided conviction for a credit card theft charge in New Jersey, by agreeing to become an informant for the U.S. Secret Service. While working with the government, he was at the same time carrying out an intricate plan of credit card theft. It seems the government’s key informant, wasn’t exactly playing the game the right way.

He was indicted in Boston for those crimes, along with 10 other men, for stealing more than 40 million credit card numbers from businesses such as T.J. Maxx, Barnes and Noble, and OfficeMax. At the time this was the record for a heist of that kind.

During this time Gonzalez was reaping the rewards of his life of crime. He was said to have a amassed a splendid Miami condo, more than $1.65 million in the bank, and a shiny new BMW. Prosecutors also allege that he had buried $1 million dollars in cash in his parents backyard.

Gonzalez has been in jail since May of 2008 when he was arrested for another hacking incident involving the Dave and Busters restaurant chain. Now his current crimes have come to light. They got 130 million credit card numbers this time, shattering the previous record. For this occasion the hackers got into the computer networks of Heartland Payment Systems, a payment processor in Princeton, N.J.; 7-Eleven Inc.; Hannaford Brothers, a regional supermarket chain; as well as two unnamed national retailers.

Gonzalez’s crimes just further illustrate the precautions that need to be taken on both sides. The businesses he hacked have had their systems exposed and it shows that their data isn’t being secured as well as it should be. When you use your credit card at a place of business, your entrusting them to be able to protect your information. The problem is that oftentimes our best and brightest minds choose to go play for the other side. Its hard for the companies to keep up when the hackers are more sophisticated than their “security experts”

Investigators say Gonzalez and his network are among the most advanced they’ve encountered.“We’re not seeing a huge array of hackers capable of doing this, but rather a more select group, [and that] demonstrates that there is a level of sophistication involved in these hacks,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Erez Liebermann of the Justice Department’s New Jersey district office.

“It’s the companies responsibility to secure this sort of information and they were doing a really bad job at it,” Sean Arries (a security expert with Terremark Inc in Miami) said. “They left themselves vulnerable.”

For the consumer it shows just how closely you need to monitor the activity on your card. I check mine on the computer once a day. It doesn’t take much time, and that way you can be alerted by the first sign of suspicious activity. The sooner you catch it, obviously the better. Don’t make the mistake of thinking something like this can’t happen to you, it can happen to anyone. Always remember to take whatever precautions you can and remain vigilant.