Four Romanian nationals have been charged with hacking card-processing systems at more than 150 Subway restaurants and 50 other unnamed retailers, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.
The hackers compromised the credit-card data of more than 80,000 customers and used the data to make millions of dollars of unauthorized purchases, according to the indictment (.pdf).
From 2008 until May 2011, the hackers allegedly hacked into more than 200 point-of-sale (POS) systems in order to install a keystroke logger and other sniffing software that would steal customer credit, debit and gift-card numbers. They also placed backdoors on the systems to provide ongoing access.
The hackers allegedly scanned the internet to identify vulnerable POS systems with certain remote desktop software applications installed on them, and then used the applications to log into the targeted POS system, either by guessing the passwords or using password-cracking software programs.
POS systems generally consist of a card scanner at a checkout register where customers scan their cards and type in a PIN or provide a signature, as well as a computer system for transferring the data to a card processor for verification and approval.
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