Fedir Hladyr, Wire Fraud and Computer Hacking, Washington 2019

A high-level organizer of the notorious hacking group FIN7 has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for a scheme that compromised tens of millions of debit and credit cards.

Fedir Hladyr, 35, served as a manager and systems administrator for FIN7, a Ukrainian national who was arrested in Dresden, Germany, in 2018, at the request of U.S. law enforcement. He was extradited to Seattle, Washington, in 2018.

In September 2019, Hladyr pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

The hacking group, which also went by the names Carbanak Group and the Navigator Group, among others, engaged in a highly sophisticated malware campaign to attack hundreds of U.S. companies. FIN7 hacked into thousands of computer systems and stole millions of customer credit and debit card numbers that were then used or sold for profit.

According to documents filed in the case, since at least 2015, members of FIN7 launched waves of malicious cyberattacks on numerous businesses operating in the United States and abroad. To execute its scheme, FIN7 carefully crafted email messages that would appear legitimate to a business’ employees, and accompanied emails with telephone calls intended to further legitimize the emails.

In the United States alone, FIN7 successfully breached the computer networks of businesses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, stealing more than 20 million customer card records from over 6,500 individual point-of-sale terminals at more than 3,600 separate business locations. Victims incurred enormous costs, totaling billions of dollars.

Hladyr originally joined FIN7 via a front company called Combi Secu. He is the first high-ranking member of the group to be sentenced in the United States.

“The defendant and his conspirators compromised millions of financial accounts and caused over a billion dollars in losses to Americans and costs to the U.S. economy,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas L. McQuaid of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Protecting businesses – both large and small – online is a top priority for the Department of Justice. The department is committed to working with our international partners to hold such cyber criminals accountable, no matter where they reside or how anonymous they think they are.”

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