Russian hacker to face a US federal judge over JP Morgan attacks

A Russian hacker has been shipped off to the US to face a judge. 35-year-old Andrei Tyurin, who allegedly conducted a series of hacks against JP Morgan and other companies, was arrested in Georgia and extradited to the US following a request by the US government. His actions reportedly affected more than 100 million customers.

Working with several co-conspirators, including Joshua Samuel Aaron, Gery Shalon, Ziv Orenstein and an unidentified fifth person, Tyurin assisted in a large hacking campaign of a number of companies. One of the attacks has been called the largest-ever theft of customer data from a financial institution in the US. That attack saw 83 million JP Morgan customers have their data stolen in 2014. Other targets were Scottrade, E*Trade Financial and Dow Jones & Co.

After obtaining the information, which ran from 2012 to 2015, the criminals used it to participate in a number of activities, including a pump-and-dump scheme that saw them make millions of dollars by selling penny stocks and artificially raising the stocks’ prices.

According to a statement by the Department of Justice, “In addition to the US financial sector hacks, Tyurin also conducted cyber-attacks against numerous US and foreign companies in furtherance of various criminal enterprises operated by Shalon and his co-conspirators, including unlawful internet gambling businesses and international payment processors.