Court hears Texan hacker stole $274,000 from Digital River

A federal court in Minneapolis has heard accusations that a Texan man hacked his way into the systems of well-known ecommerce company Digital River, and stole more than a quarter of a million dollars.

35-year-old Jeremey Parker of Houston, Texas, has been charged with computer fraud and wire fraud after allegations that between December 23 2008 and October 15 2009, he broke into a computer network belonging to Digital River subsidiary SWReg Inc, and redirected $274,000 of electronic payments to his personal account.

SWReg is well-known amongst independent software developers – for over 20 years it has been providing a convenient infrastructure for smaller software firms and shareware authors to deliver their products and collect payments without going to the effort of creating their own online store.

If convicted, Parker could face up to 30 years in prison.

Unfortunately, Digital River is no stranger to the attention of hackers. Earlier this year Digital River was in the…

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.