Hackers Arrested for E-Commerce Site Break-ins Hackers Arrested for E-Commerce Site Break-ins Paul Jones
Police in Wales have arrested Curador, a hacker suspected of stealing thousands of credit cards from nine e-commerce sites and posting many of them on the Web.
The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center confirmed Friday that Welsh police have taken into custody two 18-year-old men, both residents of Dyfed-Powsys, Wales and presumed to be Curador and his associate. The names of the men have not yet been released.
Curador and his accomplice are expected to be charged under Britain's Computer Misuse Act for the theft of more than 26,000 credit card numbers. The two also will be charged for fraudulent use of the cards. Curador and his accomplice allegedly rang up several dozen online purchases using stolen cards, many of the charges exceeding $2,000. Details of the possible sentences facing the suspects were not immediately available. The two men may also face prosecution in the United States.
As first reported by InternetNews.com, Curador hit his first victim, an online shop called shoppingthailand.com, in late January. Shortly thereafter, he posted 1,000 credit card numbers and other customer data at a personal Web site at Xoom.com, the Web homesteading site. Curador, who called himself "the custodian of ecommerce," claimed to have taken 5,000 cards from the etailer, and boasted that he had exploited insecurities in Microsoft's Web server software.