The United States Department of Justice has charged two Iranian hackers, Arash Amiri Abedian, 31, and Danial Jeloudar, 27, with credit card fraud, computer hacking conspiracy, and extortion.

The two hackers used malware and other “malicious software” to gain credit card data from various merchants in order to purchase goods and services. They also threatened victims with the exposure of that information in order to gain further monies.

The Department of Justice press release stated: “The superseding indictment further alleges that, in January 2017, Jeloudar contacted a California-based online merchant and threatened to disclose its customers’ credit card numbers and other related information previously obtained by hacking the merchant‘s website, unless it made a Bitcoin payment to Jeloudar. Jeloudar also threatened to disclose to the company’s customers that their private information had been compromised and launched a denial-of-service attack on the company’s website.”

The FBI investigated the case and Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Klumb, along with Trial Attorney Heather Alpino, will be prosecuting the case.

On the FBI's website, the two are listed as being “an international flight risk” though they are thought to still be residing in Iran. An international warrant has been issued and it is hoped that they will be captured when they leave the country.

Source: Bitdefender