7/9/2010 8:42:39 AM
IT Security news: Personal information theft employee awaits sentence
A former IT worker for the Bank of New York has admitted
stealing personal information of 2,000 employees and using it to
steal more than $1m from charity bank accounts.
The former employee used his position to steal the personal
information from staff, most of whom worked in the IT department.
Over an eight-year span, he used the information to set up dummy
bank accounts in the employees' names and then transfer stolen
funds from at least 11 charities throughout the world.
He used publicly available routing numbers for the charities to
initiate wire transfers through financial sites, and deposit them
into the dummy accounts. To cover his tracks, he then transferred
the funds to a second layer of dummy accounts.
The stolen data was also used to steal directly from his
co-workers by changing the contact information with their banks and
taking control of their online accounts. In all, his scheme netted
$1.1m, prosecutors said. To prevent his scheme from being detected,
he structured transfers to be just below the $10,000 threshold that
requires financial institutions to report the transactions to
authorities.
The former employee pleaded guilty to grand larceny, money
laundering, and computer tampering. He will be sentenced on 21st
July.