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Eastern Europeans charged with RBS WorldPay hack

Elinor Mills CNET News

Published: 11 Nov 2009 12:34 GMT

A group of Eastern Europeans was charged with hacking into the network of payment processor RBS WorldPay and using counterfeit debit cards at ATMs around the world to steal more than $9m, the US Justice Department said on Tuesday.

Four of the defendants allegedly collaborated to break into the RBS WorldPay network on 4 November, 2008, where they gained access to the account numbers for prepaid payroll cards used by employees to withdraw salaries from ATMs, according to the indictment from a federal grand jury in Atlanta. The defendants allegedly reverse-engineered the PINs associated with the accounts from the encrypted data on the network.

The defendants then allegedly raised the account limits on the compromised accounts and provided a network of 'cashers' with 44 fake debit cards, according to the Justice Department. The cards allegedly were used on 8 November, 2008, to withdraw money from more than 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities, including in North America, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Hong Kong and Japan, in less than 12 hours.

For the full story, see Eastern Europeans charged in payment processor hack on CNET News.