Intellectual Property Law

A New York man was hit with a federal conspiracy charge this week for allegedly lending his programming expertise to the head of a hacking gang accused of stealing and selling over 40 million credit and debit card numbers.

Stephen Watt, 25, allegedly customized a packet-sniffing program called "blabla" for use by Albert Gonzalez, a former Secret Service informant who was indicted earlier this year as the mastermind of a 2005-2007  intrusion into clothier T.J. Maxx, as well as breaches at BJ?s Wholesale Club, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21, DSW and OfficeMax.

Gonzalez allegedly used sniffers to scoop up credit and debit card numbers from hacked networks as they sped from cash registers to processing servers. Watt modified blabla "on diverse dates" to meet Gonzalez's evolving needs, according to the one-count federal information (.pdf) filed in federal court in Boston on Wednesday.

Watt is charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, wire fraud, identity theft and money laundering.

Ten other defendants have previously been charged with Gonzalez in the hack attacks. Last month one of them, Damon Patrick Toey of Miami, pleaded guilty and agreed (.pdf) to cooperate against the other defendants in exchange for a recommendation of a reduced sentence.

Toey was released to electronic monitoring, then nearly returned to jail when his pretrial services officer discovered a computer in his home (.pdf), in violation of his release conditions. When Toey had the computer removed to a storage unit, he was allowed to remain free pending sentencing, currently set for December.

Fed Blotter is Threat Level's weekly roundup of computer crime cases in the federal courts. If you've been indicted, or are about to be, please let us know.

Photo: ztil301/Flickr

See Also:

• Fed Blotter: Pedophile's Online Sock Puppets Included Fake Johnny Depp
• Fed Blotter: Alleged Hackers Charged With Highway Robbery, Literally
• Fed Blotter: New Charges Filed Against Alleged Cyber Peeping Tom
• Fed Blotter: Citibank Worker Allegedly Plunders Customer Accounts