Breuer
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - Estonia native Aleksandr Suvorov was sentenced July 18 to seven years in prison for his role in two separate hacking schemes involving a total of more than 240,000 stolen credit card numbers.
One of his thefts involved hacking into Dave and Buster's restaurant chain and stealing more than 80,000 credit card numbers
Suvorov was an accomplice to Albert Gonzalez, one of the most prolific identity thieves ever prosecuted by the U.S. government. He pleaded guilty to the Dave and Buster's hacking as well as to a trafficking in unauthorized access devices charge related to the sale of more than 160,000 stolen credit card numbers to an undercover agent with the U.S. Secret Service.
According to the Department of Justice, Suvorov, Albert Gonzalez and a third co-conspirator gained unauthorized access into Dave & Buster's computer systems to install malicious software.
Gonzalez, who was in Miami, sent the software, known as a "packet sniffer," to a co-conspirator in Ukraine, the DOJ said. The co-conspirator then provided the packet sniffer to Suvorov in Estonia, the DOJ said.
Suvorov, working with another individual, gained unauthorized access to 11 Dave & Buster's restaurants throughout the United States, one of which was in Islandia, N.Y., and installed the packet sniffer. Suvorov and his co-conspirators ultimately obtained data from 81,005 credit cards.
"Suvorov participated in a scheme to sell thousands of credit card numbers stolen from unsuspecting consumers," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said.
"Computer hackers like Mr. Suvorov victimize businesses and individuals, posing a serious threat to their financial security. Today's sentence sends a clear message that cybercriminals operating abroad will suffer severe consequences for their crimes."