Excerpts from BankInfoSecurity.com

How it Happened

According to the indictment, Lee Klein, one of eleven people charged in the indictment,  worked for the criminal "crew" ofThomas Fiore, an associate of the Bonanno organized crime family.

The indictment alleges that Klein illegally used "informationobtained from computer databases in order to acquire identificationinformation regarding potential victims of extortion" and peoplesuspected by Fiore's criminal organization of being involved with lawenforcement.

Klein allegedly provided Fiore with "corporation names,addresses and account numbers to facilitate the manufacture andnegotiation of counterfeit checks."  In addition, the indictment alleges that members of thecriminal crew used threats of force and violence, including conspiracyto commit murder, to advance the objectives of the enterprise.

Security Experts React to Mob Ties

"Althoughsensational in its headline 'Mob Steals Data,' we perhaps should focuson how the data was accessed and what was contained in theinformation," says information security and privacy expert Kevin Nixon,CISSP, CISM, CGEIT.

"We are experiencing some most extraordinary eventsrelated to global businesses, economics and confidential informationmovement via the merger and acquisition of companies, networks,databases and entire systems."

Analyst Nick Holland sees this case is indicative of the waythat data breaches are becoming the work of organized crime syndicates,both overseas and domestically. "The relative ease with which sensitivedata can be acquired by either high tech (malware) or low tech (placinga criminal within an organization) means makes it attractive fororganized criminals that have the resources to execute such attacks,"says Holland, of the Aite Group.

The Bonanno crime family was making money from the sale ofunauthorized identification documents (including social securitynumbers and health and life insurance applications). "If the mafiaconsiders that selling sensitive information is a legitimate line ofbusiness, then clearly the days of just amateurs committing breachesare well behind us," Holland observes.

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