Russian admitted to the largest US cyber attack

A Russian hacker from Syktyvkar, Vladimir Drinkman, confessed to a US court in organizing a criminal scheme, which the prosecutor in his case called the biggest burglary in history. Thanks to the confession, part of the charges against him were dropped, and now Drinkman faces not life imprisonment, but only 35 years in prison, reports ABC News.

34-year-old Drinkman, having entered the courtroom, refused to have a translator, explaining that during his imprisonment he had enough time to practice English. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to gain access to protected computers, as well as Internet fraud. Nine more charges against him were dropped. It is not known whether the transaction includes only a confession or whether Drinkman agreed to cooperate with the investigation and assist in apprehending three more suspects in his case, who are still listed as wanted.

In 2013, the American authorities declared wanted on Drinkman, Russians Alexander Kalinin, Roman Kotov, Dmitry Smilyants, and also Ukrainian citizen Mikhail Rytikov. According to investigators, they illegally obtained data from more than 160 million bank cards and several international companies, after which they sold them.

It was reported that the victims of the fraudsters were, in particular, the Nasdaq electronic exchange, JetBlue, JC Penney, French retailer Carrefour and Belgian bank Dexia. Most of the credit card numbers - about 130 millions - were obtained by hackers by hacking into the computers of Heartland Payment Systems, a company that processes small and medium-sized American companies. According to the investigation, the damage caused by hackers amounted to more than 300 million dollars.

Criminal activities, according to law enforcement agencies, hackers led from 2005 to the summer of 2012. Drinkman was the main suspect in the case. He was arrested in the Netherlands with Smilianz, who was extradited to the United States in August 2013. Since then, he has been detained.

Three other defendants are wanted.