
Remember back in December when Target caused us to have a collective breakdown because the credit card information of 70 million shoppers was stolen? The government said yesterday it found who you should direct your anger toward: the Russians.
Authorities discovered that parts of the code that were deployed to steal people’s PIN and card data were written in Russian and have been floating around on the Internet black market since last year. Both aspects suggest that the operation has its roots with an organize crime group in Russia, reports the WSJ.
The report goes on to describe the operation as very sophisticated, so much so that security analysts are still figuring out how it worked. They did figure out that the virus couldn’t be detected by antivirus software and was designed to hide that “they were collecting copies of data from the magnetic stripes” on shoppers’ cards. Seems like a lot of work!
With the upcoming Olympics, maybe the Russians should focus their energy in medaling for hockey?