Identity theft case could be largest so far

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Thu Jul 22 01:34:02 EDT 2004


<http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/21/cyber.theft/index.html>

CNN



Identity theft case could be largest so far

 Wednesday, July 21, 2004 Posted: 10:49 PM EDT (0249 GMT)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Florida man was indicted Wednesday in an alleged
scheme to steal vast amounts of personal information, and the Justice
Department said it might be the largest illegal invasion and theft of
personal data to date.

The 144-count indictment against Scott Levine, 45, also includes charges of
conspiracy, fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice, according
to the Justice Department.

Levine's alleged target was Acxiom Corp., one of the world's largest
companies managing personal, financial and corporate data, federal
authorities said.

Levine is accused of stealing vast amounts of personal information from the
company via the Internet.

Federal officials said the theft of approximately 8.2 gigabytes of data
resulted in losses of more than $7 million.

"The protection of personal information stored on our nation's computer
systems is critical to public trust in those networks and to the health of
our economy," said Assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray at a news
conference in Washington.

"We will aggressively pursue those who steal private information from
computer networks and make it clear that there are serious consequences for
such crimes," he said.

Levine, a resident of Boca Raton, Florida, is described in the indictment
as "the controlling force" in Snipermail.com Inc., a Florida corporation
engaged in distributing advertisements via the Internet on behalf of
advertisers and brokers.

Acxiom, headquartered in Little Rock and Conway, Arkansas, stores and
processes millions of bits of data on behalf of a wide range of clients
that include IBM, GE, Microsoft and many major credit card companies.

The invasions from Snipermail were discovered during another investigation
of another intrusion at Acxiom last year, authorities said.

The FBI's regional computer forensics laboratory in Dallas, Texas, and
computer forensic experts from the FBI and the Secret Service were
unleashed on the cyber intruders.

The indictment alleges that Levine and others at the company attempted to
hide computers from investigators.

Six employees at the company agreed to cooperate with the investigation,
authorities said.


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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