Three Spammers Accused of Largest Data Breach in History

The US Department of Justice has charged three men with what could be the biggest data breach in the history of the internet. The three spammers are accused of stealing billions of e-mail addresses from the databases of e-mail service providers. Two of the men, Giang Hoang Vu and Viet Quoc Nguyen, are Vietnamese citizens residing in the Netherlands, while the third, David-Manuel Santos Da Silva, is Canadian.

A statement from Assistant Attorney General Caldwell read: “These men… are accused of carrying out the largest data breach of names and email addresses in the history of the Internet. The defendants allegedly made millions of dollars by stealing over a billion email addresses from email service providers.”

The three men targeted the largest e-mail providers in the world, including Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail. Considering the scope of the operation and the volume of addresses accrued, it is quite likely that someone reading this has had their e-mail address stolen by these spammers. Only addresses were gathered, though: no passwords were compromised during the data breach.

Santos Da Silva is alleged to have laundered money that Hoang Vu and Quoc Nguyen earned through their spamming through his website, marketbay.com. Da Silva and Hoang Vu have been arrested, but Quoc Nguyen remains at large. Huoang Vu has pleaded guilty to computer fraud.

Source: Cyber Kendra