Russian hacker avoids jail after $9 million RBS WorldPay ATM heist

In late 2008, electronic payment service RBS WorldPay revealed that a gang of hackers had broken into its computer systems, stolen information to help them create cloned debit cards, boosted their withdrawal limits and stolen huge amounts of money from ATMs around the world.

Mules operated by the gang stole a total of over $9 million from more than 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide. All it took them was a jaw-dropping 12 hours to pull off their heist.

27-year-old Yevgeny Anikin was a key member of the cybercriminal gang, and purchased a luxury car and two apartments in the Russian city of Novosibirsk before being caught in 2009.

Remarkably, according to local media reports, Anikin has avoided jail. A court told him today that we would receive a five-year suspended sentence…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.