A second Russian man pleaded guilty Wednesday in what authorities are calling the largest hacking scheme ever prosecuted in the United States.
Dmitriy Smilianets pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud in a plot that resulted in the theft of 160 million credit card numbers from payment processors, retailers and financial institutions.
He now faces up to 30 years in prison.
{mosads}Another Russian, Vladimir Drinkman, yesterday pleaded guilty to conspiring to illegally access computers and conspiring to commit wire fraud in the same scheme.
Three others charged in the case remain at large.
The team of hackers infected used malware to infiltrate the networks of 17 companies, including NASDAQ, Dow Jones, JetBlue and others, then sold the data to identity theft wholesalers. Credit card numbers brought $10 to $50 a piece, depending on the country of origin.
The wholesalers then sold the data to others, who would use it to encode the magnetic strips of blank credit cards that they could then cash out at ATMs or retail outlets, the indictments charged.
The malware remained embedded on victims’ computers for over a year in some cases, documents reveal. The scheme cost three of the 17 victims over $300 million, according to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.
The case is considered a big win for law enforcement officials, who have been struggling to punish overseas hackers.
Remaining at large are Mikhail Rytikov, of Ukraine, and Russians Alexandr Kalinin and Roman Kotov.