(pictured is Aaron, one of the three men involved)
On November 10th, three men were charged with and arrested for the largest bank data breach of all time. Their names are Gery Shalon, Ziv Orenstein and Joshua Samuel Aaron. All three men were charged in July with related crimes, though the hacking crimes were not specified then. These three men hacked the data base of JP Morgan Chase and Co. back in 2014, which is the bank with the largest amount of assets. The stole more than 83 million users records then and there are also millions of accounts from 2012 when these men stole millions of identity information. CBS covered the story and this is how it happened: "Over three years, the hackers bought penny stocks and drove up their prices. They then sent spam emails to the customers whose data was stolen, encouraging them to buy those stocks. When the prices went up, the suspects cashed out leaving investors with significant losses. It worked so well, Shalon allegedly bragged about it in emails contained in the court papers. When asked by an accomplice if it was easy to get Americans to buy stocks he replied: 'It's like drinking freaking vodka in Russia.'". Scottrade and Dow Jones have both stated recently they were among the victims of the group. "The indictment said one or more of the defendants also engaged in other criminal schemes since 2007, including U.S. securities market manipulation schemes and the operation of at least a dozen Internet casinos that violated U.S. laws." Aaron, a U.S. citizen believed to be residing in Moscow and Israel, was a fugitive. This is pretty scary stuff. Everyone knows the internet isn't a safe place, but when information like this gets released it makes it very hard to trust people and more specifically, banks to keep your money safe.
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