Hacker attack circled globe, FBI says

[Lite]

In November 2008, with the nation transfixed by a presidential election and a collapsing economy, a group of international hackers infiltrated the computer network of a major financial services company in what authorities describe as one of the most sophisticated attacks ever concocted.

Their work was furtive and impressive: Around the time Barack Obama was securing his White House win, the hackers entered RBS WorldPay servers, accessed prepaid payroll card numbers, cracked their encrypted PIN codes, raised the balances on the cards and distributed dozens of them to a team of people around the world.

Then, in the span of 12 hours around Nov. 8 of that year, the group hit 2,100 ATM terminals in 280 cities spanning the world, from the U.S. to Russia to Italy to Japan. Prosecutors say they withdrew $9 million -- a haul that rivals 1,000 typical bank robberies in the U.S.

Despite the technical and international challenges of the case, U.S. investigators say they were able to trace the scheme back to its origin.

On Friday, they brought one of the accused ringleaders from Estonia to Atlanta to face arraignment on several fraud charges.

Sergei Tsurikov, 26, of Tallinn, Estonia, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment to conspiracy to commit computer fraud, computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

FBI officials said in interviews with the Associated Press that they weren't so much drawn to the case by the dollar amount of the RBS heist but by the coordination.

It exemplified the international scope and increasing acumen of cyber attacks.

"As people become more technically proficient and get access to the Internet, we see this crime showing up in more and more places," said Pat Carney, who supervised the RBS case at the FBI's headquarters.

With such an increasing need for cyber defenses, the FBI has ramped up its focus, training some 900 agents in how to handle such crimes.

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[Ambrocious]

They forgot to mention that the Federal Reserve banking institute which is responsible for the mass robbery of millions of people which is worth in the trillions. But they wouldn't tell you about that now would they...

[Ferocity]

Right, this is just another attempt to demonize the free and open internet. And they are constantly talking about the new (secure) internet 2.0, about giving new totalitarion powers to government to shutdown the internet or restricting access to certain parts of it, thus destroying free speech.