JP Morgan is among several financial institutions affected by large hacking of customer data

Charges brought in largest US financial cyber-hacking

Prosecutors have charged three men relating to the largest cyber-attack of financial firms in US history.

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Personal information for 100 million people was accessed by cyber-thieves between 2012 and the summer of 2015.

 

At a press conference on Tuesday, US federal prosecutor Preet Bharara called the scheme "securities fraud on cyber-steroids".

Twelve institutions were victims of the hacking, including JPMorgan, and asset manager Fidelity.

US prosecutors said they were expanding charges against two Israeli men, Gery Shalon and Ziv Orenstein, as well as a US citizen, Joshua Samuel Aaron.

Charges against the three men were expanded to include computer hacking and identity theft among 21 other counts.

Mr Aaron, 31, was a fugitive and believed to be living in Moscow, while Mr Shalon, 31, and Mr Orenstein, also 40, were in custody in Israel.

The men allegedly manipulated stock prices by selling shares of companies to individuals whose contact information they had stolen. They then dumped their own shares, causing the price to fall.

The men were also charged with running an illegal payment processing business that they used to collect $18m (£11.9m) in fees.

Prosecutors claim the men hacked into competitors' systems to spy on them and then hacked into a credit card company investigating their payment processing business in order to avoid detection.

Separate charges have also been brought against a Florida man, Anthony Murgio, who operated a unlicensed digital currency service and had previously been linked to the breach at JPMorgan.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission had already filed civil charges related to securities fraud against Mr Shalon, Mr Aaron and Mr Orenstein.

 

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