$300 million 'superhackers' are not so super after all

Hackers caught

Two of the five men named in an indictment last week, widely labelled "the largest ever hacking and data breach scheme in the United States", were caught thanks to some pretty obvious carelessness - they posted their holiday snaps online and let their mobile phones broadcast their location to the cops on their trail.

29-year-old Dmitriy Smilianets, thought to have been in charge of monetizing the credit card data heisted by the rest of the gang, maintained a jaunty presence on social networks and ran a globe-trotting online gaming team, according to Reuters.

When one of his travelling companions was identified as Vladimir Drinkman, a suspected confederate of convicted ringleader Albert Gonzalez, cops put two and two together and closed in.

Drinkman's phone was transmitting location data, allowing the law to pin the group down to a hotel in the Netherlands, where local police picked the two up as they prepared to board a tour bus.

Smilianets has been extradicted to the US, while Drinkman remains in the Netherlands battling extradiction.

$300 million 'superhackers' are not so super after all | The Naked Security