Turkish hacker, Ercan Findikoglu, pleaded guilty to masterminding the theft of over $55m in cyber attacks on banks and could face over 50 years in prison for his part in the scheme. He is believed to have coordinated the attacks on three payment processing companies, before using mules to withdraw money from ATMs worldwide. Those involved targeted the companies and changed admin privileges, which allowed them to inflate bank balances and remove the withdrawal limits on pre-paid debit cards. Copied cards were then used to withdraw money from ATMs. The attacks took place between 2010 and 2013 and in one 11-hour period, a gang of mules operating in New York withdrew $40m from 3,000 ATMs; the wider operation that day spread across 24 countries, involved 36,000 transactions and netted over $2.4m.
Turkish hacker, Ercan Findikoglu, pleaded guilty to masterminding the theft of over $55m in cyber attacks on banks and could face over 50 years in prison for his part in the scheme. He is believed to have coordinated the attacks on three payment processing companies, before using mules to withdraw money from ATMs worldwide. Those involved targeted the companies and changed admin privileges, which allowed them to inflate bank balances and remove the withdrawal limits on pre-paid debit cards. Copied cards were then used to withdraw money from ATMs. The attacks took place between 2010 and 2013 and in one 11-hour period, a gang of mules operating in New York withdrew over $2.4m from 3,000 ATMs; the wider operation that day spread across 24 countries, involved 36,000 transactions and netted $40m.