US court sentences Albert Gonzalez to 20 years

tmarket · Mar 28, 2010

No, not the 80th Attorney General of the United States under GW Bush, although the former AG should serve some jail time as well for the corruption of the AG office under Bush.

Computer hacker Albert Gonzalez has been jailed for 20 years in the US for his part in stealing the details of more than 130m credit and debit cards.

Both the former AG and this computer hacker have another thing in common: they were both under the payroll of the US federal government.

One judge described the crime as "the largest and most costly example of computer hacking in US history".

The 28-year-old pleaded guilty to three cases of fraud at his trial last year.

Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years for the first two cases on Thursday, and 20 years and one day on Friday for the third. The terms will run concurrently.

The judge in the third case said he had to serve the extra 24 hours because the crime had been committed when he was working for the US Secret Service as an informant, reportedly receiving as much as $75,000 a year.

As part of a plea agreement, Gonzalez also agreed to hand over $1m that he had buried in his parents' garden, a condo in his hometown of Miami, a car, a diamond ring and several expensive watches.

'Powerful message'

Gonzalez was accused last August, along with two Russian co-conspirators, of hacking into the payment systems of retailers.
Hackers continue to put up a persistent and very real threat to enterprise systems
Amichai Shulman
Imperva

They targeted more than 250 US companies including payment processor Heartland Payment Systems, food and drink store 7-Eleven and American supermarket Hannaford Brothers Co.

Gonzalez was found to have used SQL injection attacks to exploit weaknesses in payment software programmes and access data, stealing millions of customer card details.

He blamed "curiosity and addiction" for his crimes.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Department of Justice said that on a daily basis "cyber criminals try to steal the debit and credit card numbers of unsuspecting American consumers."

"These sentences - some of the longest ever imposed for hacking crimes - send a powerful message to hackers around the globe that US law enforcement will not allow them to breach American computer networks and payment systems, or illegally obtain identities."

Amichai Shulman, chief technology officer of cyber security firm Imperva, warned that hackers "continue to put up a persistent and very real threat to enterprise systems".

"The current data security spend is focused on enterprise networks, yet the Gonzalez attacks took distinct advantage of weaknesses in the database and applications. This is an industry-wide problem."
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AMT4SWA · Mar 28, 2010

I predict he will suddenly die in prison within the next 12 to 18 months (they will wait a little while until everybody forgets about him). When you stop playing the "game" FULL TILT for your masters it is game over very soon......the ONLY message they are sending is to all the other dysfunctional informants our country EMPLOYS all around the world.

RMEMBER....when you are playing the EVIL masters game, you can't have your own game on the side.....NO, NO, NO! :eek:

AMT4SWA · Mar 28, 2010

BTW Albert, the various government agencies you were pimped by THANK YOU for all the coin you jacked.....they LOVE all the "off books" ops funds you just provided them!!! :eek:

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US court sentences Albert Gonzalez to 20 years

tmarket

AMT4SWA

AMT4SWA