Tag Archive for: accused

300+ gallons for $30? Men accused of using device to steal gas face felony charges

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NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. – Two men accused of stealing hundreds of gallons of fuel from a 7-Eleven gas station each face a felony charge of grand theft, as well as other charges, according to the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators said deputies were called to the gas station Monday on Lofton Square Court, where they determined two men had installed a device on a gas pump that restricts the flow meter on its pumping system. Arrest reports state the suspects used a key to open the pumps and place the manipulator inside and then used a small remote to control the device.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, the first theft was of 367 gallons of fuel valued at $1,757.93 — but the pump only showed a charge of $30.

The Sheriff’s Office said deputies determined the same two men were involved in a second theft. Investigators said just before the deputy arrived, the men had been pumping for approximately 10 minutes and took approximately 114 gallons of gas valued at about $546.

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“It was determined that the suspects opened the gas pump cabinet using a key without authorization and knowingly and willfully installed a device, which caused the electronic computer system to understate the amount of fuel being pumped,” the Sheriff’s Office reported.

The two men arrested were identified as Ramon Vila-Garcia and Silvio Richard Aguila. Both are both being held at the Nassau County jail.

Booking photos for Ramon Vila and Silvio Aguila provided by Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.

We spoke with cyber security expert Chris Hamer about the device the men were accused of using.

“It was obviously designed by somebody with internal knowledge of the machines because it is custom-made for intercepting the signal from the actual fuel flow meter and modifying it or replacing it with a slower count,” Hamer explained. “So the computer thinks less gasoline is passing through the pipe than it actually is.”

Hamer said devices like the one found by investigators are used by members of organized theft rings that target gas stations all across the U.S.

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“The Secret Service is currently monitoring 40 groups in Florida alone,” Hamer said. “It’s a nationwide problem. It’s a worldwide problem…

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Hacker Accused of Downloading Social Security Numbers Stands Trial

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The trial is underway of an accused hacker who prosecutors say downloaded the personal information of 100 million Capital One customers, including 140,000 Social Security numbers.

According to the New York Times, the defendant is a former Amazon employee who claimed she was doing legitimate research. She’s been charged with ten counts of computer fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft, and the trial is taking place in federal court in Seattle.

“They are interpreting a statute so broadly that it captures conduct that is innocent and as a society, we should be supporting, which is security researchers going out on the internet and trying to make it safer,” the woman’s lawyer told the newspaper.

The U.S. attorney, however, claims that the woman was “motivated both to make money and to gain notoriety in the hacking community and beyond,” according to a legal filing reported by the newspaper.

In other news related to Social Security-involved crimes:

A sixty-nine-year-old West Virginia woman has pled guilty to charges of theft of government benefits and making materially false statements to federal agents.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of West Virginia, the woman has admitted that she collected Social Security benefits meant for a deceased relative. The collections took place over a four-year period between 2016 and 2020, and she collected $46,356 in federal benefits.

The woman also, per the prosecutors, has admitted that she lied to federal investigators, first lying that she was her sister, and then claiming that she would be out of town for a month. She is scheduled to be sentenced in September, facing a maximum of fifteen years in prison.

And in Indiana, a woman was accused of stealing nearly $70,000 in Social Security funds that were meant for her deceased sister, as reported by the Greenfield Reporter, citing a Social Security Administration (SSA) report.

The woman was charged with a Level 5 felony count of theft and a Level 5 felony count of welfare fraud.

Per the newspaper article, the woman “had a scheme to defraud the Social Security Disability Benefits Program.” After her sister passed away, the woman did not notify…

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Accused Capital One Hacker Stands Trial for Fraud and Identity Theft

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Just as Amazon stores millions of physical goods in a dizzying array of warehouses, Amazon Web Services hosts vast amounts of data for other companies that rent space on its servers. Among its customers was Capital One.

In early 2019, several years after she stopped working for Amazon Web Services, Ms. Thompson searched for its customers who had not properly set up firewalls to protect their data. “Thompson scanned tens of millions of AWS customers looking for vulnerabilities,” Mr. Brown wrote in a legal filing. By March, she had discovered a vulnerability that allowed her to download data from Capital One, the prosecutor added.

In June 2019, Ms. Thompson sent online messages to a woman and disclosed what she had found, legal filings said. Ms. Thompson added she had considered sharing the data with a scammer, and said she would publicly reveal her involvement in the breach.

“I’ve basically strapped myself with a bomb vest,” Ms. Thompson said in copies of the online chat that were included in court records, referring to her plan to publicly release the data and expose herself.

The woman suggested that Ms. Thompson turn herself in to the authorities, prosecutors said. A month later, the woman contacted Capital One and told the bank about the breach. Capital One informed law enforcement officials, and Ms. Thompson was arrested in late July 2019. If convicted, she could face more than 30 years in prison.

“The snapshots submitted by the government are an incomplete and inaccurate portrayal of a life more fairly described as one of survival and resilience,” Mohammad Ali Hamoudi, a lawyer representing Ms. Thompson, and other members of her legal team wrote in a filing. Ms. Thompson had sought mental health treatment, they added, demonstrating her resolve to confront her problems.

In 2020, Capital One agreed to pay $80 million to settle claims from federal bank regulators that it lacked the security protocols needed to protect customers’ data. The settlement also required the bank to work quickly to improve its security. In December, Capital One agreed to pay $190 million to people whose data had been exposed in the breach, settling a class-action lawsuit.

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US offering $10 million for info on Russian military hackers accused of NotPetya attacks

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The U.S. State Department announced a $10 million reward Tuesday for information about six hackers working within the GRU, Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency.

The six — all of them tied to the infamous “Sandworm” hacking group — were implicated in the creation and propagation of the NotPetya malware in charges filed by the Justice Department in 2020. 

U.S. officials previously said NotPetya caused $10 billion worth of damage worldwide but noted in a release on Tuesday that the malware collectively cost U.S. organizations nearly $1 billion in losses.

GRU officers Yuriy Sergeyevich Andrienko, Sergey Vladimirovich Detistov, Pavel Valeryevich Frolov, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Artem Valeryevich Ochichenko and Petr Nikolayevich Pliskin are listed in the notice and are accused of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) through attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure. 

“These individuals were members of the criminal conspiracy responsible for the June 27, 2017, destructive malware infection of computers in the United States and worldwide using malware known as NotPetya,” the State Department said. “These cyber intrusions damaged the computers of hospitals and other medical facilities in the Heritage Valley Health System (Heritage Valley) in western Pennsylvania, a large U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturer, and other US private sector entities.”

The DOJ has previously said that NotPetya crippled Heritage Valley’s two hospitals, 60 offices, and 18 community satellite facilities, keeping hospital officials from accessing patient histories, exam files and lab records. 

The hospitals had no access to computer systems connected to cardiology, nuclear medicine, radiology, and surgery departments for a week, and their administrative systems were down for nearly a month. 

The six GRU members worked within Unit 74455, which is also known by some researchers as Voodoo Bear, Telebots and Iron Viking. 

In 2020, they were charged with a range of offenses connected to attacks on Ukraine, Georgia, France and South Korea.

In addition to NotPetya, the group used destructive malware like KillDisk and Industroyer to cause blackouts in Ukraine. They also…

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