A man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his part in two hacking schemes that saw more than 80,000 Dave and Buster's customers have their credit card details stolen.
Aleksandr Suvorov, an associate to Albert Gonzalez who was convicted for his role in the Heartland Payment Systems data breach, which involved over 240,000 credit cards, pleaded guilty to a wire fraud conspiracy charge in May 2009 for hacking into the Dave and Buster's national restaurant chain and stealing more than 80,000 credit card numbers. Gonzalez was also involved in the incident.
Court documents say Suvorov, Gonzalez and a third co-conspirator hacked into the computer systems of Dave and Buster's for the purposes of installing malware and stealing customers' credit card information. Gonzalez, based in Miami, sent malware to the unidentified co-conspirator in Ukraine. He then provided the malware to Suvorov, who gained unauthorised access to 11 Dave and Buster's restaurants throughout the US. Suvorov and associates then stole data from 81,005 credit cards.
Separately, in November 2011, Suvorov pleaded guilty to trafficking in unauthorised access devices, which included selling more than 160,000 stolen credit card numbers to an undercover US Secret Service agent.
In addition to being sentenced to seven years in prison, Suvorov has been ordered to pay $675,000 in restitution and satisfy a $300,000 asset forfeiture judgment stemming from the New York charges.
"Computer hackers like Suvorov victimise businesses and individuals, posing a serious threat to their financial security," said US Assistant Attorney General Breuer, who announced the sentence. "Today's sentence sends a clear message that cyber criminals operating abroad will suffer severe consequences for their crimes."
