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3 Fin7 members face 26 charges in cybertheft of data for 15M cards

August 3, 2018

Three high-ranking members of an international cybercrime group operating out of Eastern Europe have been arrested and are curren in custody facing charges filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. The three Ukrainian nationals are charged with 26 felony counts each, alleging conspiracy, wire fraud, computer hacking, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft, according to an FBI press release.

Since at least 2015, FIN7 members engaged in a sophisticated malware campaign to attack more than 100 U.S. companies, hacking into thousands of computer systems in order to steal approximately 15 million customer credit and debit card numbers, which they then used or sold for profit 

In the United States alone, the organization stole more than 15 million customer card records from more than 6,500 individual point-of-sale terminals at more than 3,600 separate business locations, the release said. Additional intrusions occurred abroad, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, and France.

FIN7 used a front company, Combi Security, purportedly headquartered in Russia and Israel, to provide a guise of legitimacy and to recruit hackers to join the criminal enterprise, according to the FBI.

The Combi Security website indicated that it provided a number of security services such as penetration testing. Ironically, the sham company’s website listed multiple U.S. victims among its purported clients.

"Cybercriminals who believe that they can hide in faraway countries and operate from behind keyboards without getting caught are just plain wrong," U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes said in the release. "We will continue our longstanding work with partners around the world to ensure cybercriminals are identified and held to account for the harm that they do — both to our pocketbooks and our ability to rely on the cybernetworks we use."

Here's how the scam went down: