A Ukranian TJX Connection?
Written by Evan SchumanU.S. postal inspectors are investigating if there is a Ukranian connection to the TJX data heist, according to this Boston Globe story. The 24-year-old suspect was arrested weeks ago in the Turkish resort city of Kemer, according to this Associated Press story.
It’s not news that authorities have suspected Eastern European cyber thief syndicates as being involved in the TJX incident, given it’s massive scope (info from more than 45 million cards taken), sophisticated methods and long (multi-year) duration. But the investigators have identified a specific Ukranian–Maksym Yastremskiy–as having “sold card numbers through online forums hosted overseas, sometimes in Cyrillic or that were password protected. He is likely the largest seller of stolen TJX numbers.”
Prices ranged from $20 to $100 per stolen card, and the cards were sold in batches of up to 10,000, depending on factors like the credit limits of the consumer accounts being traded, the story said.
Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code.
-Marc
