Russian Hacker Sentenced to 27 Years in Prison in Credit Card Case

Roman Seleznev, the man that caused more than $169 million in damage after running a PoS hacking scheme, was sentenced to 27 years in prison, which is the longest punishment for a hacker thus far. 

The Russian hacker ran his scheme between October 2009 and October 2013. During this time, he installed malware on point-of-sale systems (PoS), which then stole payment card details from buyers. The data was later sold on the dark web to the highest bidder. 

In total, about 500 American businesses were affected, as well as 3,700 financial institutions. The data collected by the infected PoS was sent to servers Seleznev controlled in Russia, Ukraine, and Virginia. 

The hacker was caught back in the summer of 2014 when he was on holiday in the Maldives. His laptop, which was seized upon his arrest, held more than 1.7 million stolen credit card details, as well as plenty of other evidence linking him to the servers, and the financial transactions he made selling the data. ...