Russian Alleged Hacker Talks About Fighting U.S. Extradition

Muscovites Vladimir Drinkman and Dmitriy Smilianets met online in 2003, playing Counter-Strike, a PC shooting game. Pitting terrorists against security agents, Counter-Strike, released in 1999, has long been notorious for the “hacks” that players could use to gain advantages by altering the game’s code. Tweak the program one way, and you can fire weapons through walls; another way, and your cross hairs automatically track enemies. U.S. authorities are concerned about a different kind of hack: They’ve charged Drinkman and Smilianets in the biggest data-breach prosecution in U.S. history.

The federal indictment accuses the men of stealing 160 million credit card numbers by hacking into the systems of at least 17 companies, including foreign operations of Visa and Discover Financial Services as well as 7-Eleven, the Hannaford Bros. grocery chain, French grocer Carrefour, and Heartland Payment Systems, which processes payments for hundreds of thousands of businesses. Prosecutors allege that Drinkman penetrated corporate networks while Smilianets sold stolen card numbers online, and that their hacks at just three of the companies caused losses of more than $300 million. Three other alleged co-conspirators, two from Russia and one from Ukraine, remain at large.