Oh, ‘hack’ yeah!
Russian in massive data breach extradited
A Russian hacker has been extradited from Georgia for his role in a massive data breach that resulted in the theft of over 100 million customers’ information, prosecutors announced Friday.
Andrei Tyurin, 35, will be presented in Manhattan Federal Court on charges related to the hacking that allegedly took place between 2012 and 2015.
The targeted companies included JPMorgan Chase, Fidelity Investments, E*Trade, Scottrade Financial Services and Dow Jones.
Data on 80 million JPMorgan customers was stolen, making it the largest theft of customer data from a U.S. financial institution in history, prosecutors said.
“Andrei Tyurin, a Russian national, is alleged to have participated in a global hacking campaign that targeted major financial institutions, brokerage firms, news agencies, and other companies,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman.
Tyurin was flown from Tbilisi to Stewart Airport in Orange County aboard an FBI Gulfstream jet.
He was arraigned through an interpreter and pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Florian Miedel, declined comment.
Three other men were charged with the hack in 2015, including alleged mastermind Gery Shalon, Joshua Samuel Aaron and Ziv Orenstein.
Shalon and Orenstein were extradited from Israel. Aaron, an American who lived Israel and Moscow, was arrested at Kennedy Airport in 2016.
Their cases are pending. A spokesman for Berman’s office declined to comment about whether the men were in custody.
At the time those arrests were announced, authorities said the trio had used 200 fake IDs identification documents and over 30 fake passports.
Prosecutors said the men used the hacked information for other crimes like stock market manipulation, illegal online gambling and payment processing fraud.
In one example, Tyurin, working at the direction of Shalon, attempted to artificially inflate the value of publicly traded companies in the U.S. by misleadingly marketing them to people whose information they’d obtained through hacking, prosecutors said.
Shalon also allegedly organized hacks of rival online casinos. The hacking crew swiped rivals’ customer info and accessed executives’ emails to gain a competitive advantage, according to authorities.
The men allegedly made hundreds of millions of dollars through the schemes.
Tyurin, a native of Moscow, is charged with computer hacking, wire fraud and conspiracy.
The most serious charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years.
“Today’s charges and extradition should serve as a lesson to all those who would conspire to engage in similar activity that the FBI and our partners will continue to bring these hackers to justice, regardless of where they may hide,” FBI Assistant Director William Sweeney Jr. said.