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1997-06-16
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* Subj : Cu Digest, #9.40, Wed 29 May 97
FBI arrests alleged hacker-for-profit
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SAN FRANCISCO (May 23, 1997 00:19 a.m. EDT) -- Federal agents arrested a
36-year-old man who allegedly stole information from the credit card
accounts of 100,000 people by hacking into the database of an
undisclosed major business, the FBI said.
Carlos Felipe Salgado Jr., of Daly City, Calif., was arrested Wednesday
as he was trying to sell information related to more than 100,000
accounts that contained names, card numbers and other personal
information about the card holders, said FBI spokesman George Grotz.
"We believe that he had access to at least 100,000 in terms of credit
card numbers -- perhaps even more," Grotz said.
"He was trying to sell it" to an undercover agent, Grotz said. "We had
determined that he was in the market to sell this information, and we
were able to contact him via the Internet and set up a meeting to
discuss terms of the sale. ... Based on those negotiations, he was
placed under arrest."
Salgado was scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in San Francisco
on at least one charge of unlawfully intruding into a computer network
database for the purpose of theft and a separate charge of selling
confidential credit card information via the Internet.
If convicted of both charges, Salgado could face a maximum of 15 years
in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each count, according
to the FBI. Under federal law, Salgado could be charged with separate
felony counts for information theft of each of the 100,000 accounts that
were illegally obtained. But so far, Grotz said, authorities plan to
file only one count. The investigation remains ongoing and more charges
could be added later.
The FBI still does not know how he allegedly obtained the information.
Agents contacted Salgado on-line and "did some business with him," Grotz
said. But investigators were unable to find out his identity until they
set up the in-person meeting at the airport.
"We believe that he has been hacking into various protected computers
for at least five years," Grotz said. "We don't know the extent of the
damage that he has done. He has gotten these credit card numbers via the
Internet and he has tried to sell them via the Internet. ... But we
still don't know the extent of his activities."
Authorities said that the Salgado case does not appear to be linked to
the recent theft of information on about 20,000 employees of Levi
Strauss, when a hard drive was taken from the firm's San Francisco
headquarters last month.
Grotz said that after Salgado's arrest, agents were planning to search
his residence and his personal computer for evidence related to the
information theft.
Agents did not have any information about Salgado's employment or where
he developed his hacking skills, Grotz said. "The guy obviously has
knowledge," he said.
Grotz said federal agents have seen young males try to gain access to
credit databases more as a lark, but this is believed to be one of the
first cases where someone hacked into an encrypted business database
expressly for the purpose of robbing for a profit.
"We found out about it from some vigilant technicians doing routine
maintenance" on an Internet service provider, Grotz said. That tip
prompted an FBI probe on the Internet that led to Salgado on Wednesday,
he said.
-- By JIM HERRON ZAMORA, the San Francisco Examiner.