A Maryland-based hacker was recently sentenced to 84 months in jail for stealing credit card information from a restaurant point of sale computer.
Christopher Schroebel of Keedysville, Maryland, was found to be at least partly responsible for the
identity theft associated with a rash of credit card fraud that hit the Seattle, Washington, area early in 2011, according to a report from the
Maple Valley Reporter. In all, he had at least 86,400 stolen credit card numbers in his possession, including account data stolen both by him and others.
Schroebel's scheme worked by uploading malware onto computers that transmitted payment card data to a server he controlled, the report said. He then worked with a Dutch national to sell the stolen payment information through an online credit card marketplace. One of the people who allegedly bought such a credit card number has also been arrested and is scheduled for trial in September.
Ondrej Krehel is the chief information security officer for Identity Theft 911 and writes regularly about the threats hackers pose to both businesses and consumers.
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