Cast your minds back a couple of years to 2007 and as far as hacking was concerned there was only really one big story, and I do mean big. The biggest reported case of cyber-criminals using hacking skill to steal something in the region of 40 million credit card details. Although most widely reported as the TJ Maxx hack thanks to TJX (which operates as TJ Maxx or TK Maxx depending upon where in the world you shop) other stores such as Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority and OfficeMax were also impacted by the hacking gang.
Now, according to Graham Cluley over at Sophos, one man found to be guilty of the crime, a 25 year old Ukrainian by the name of Maksym Yastremskiy, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Yastremskiy, who went by the name of Maksik, is thought to have sold hundreds of thousands of stolen credit card numbers following the theft which in turn caused tens of millions of dollars worth of losses for retailers and banks. Maksik will serve his time in a Turkish prison, following his arrest along with other gang members there last year.
"Yastremskiy will certainly have plenty of time to ponder whether his hacking activities were worthwhile," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "The length of this jail time should also make others engaged in cybercrime think again - the rewards may be large, but you risk ruining the rest of your life, and causing years of misery for your family and friends. It may seem like the chances of being caught are small, but there are more and more convictions happening all the time, and the authorities are getting better than ever at co-operating at an international level to catch the bad guys."
