The U.S. government announced on Wednesday that it had dismantled “Try2Check”, a credit card checking operation that allowed cybercriminals involved with the bulk purchase and sale of stolen credit card numbers to see which cards were valid and active.
Department of Justice prosecutors confirmed the indictment of Russian citizen Denis Gennadievich Kulkov, who is suspected of creating Try2Check in 2005. Kulkov is said to have made at least $18 million in bitcoin from the service, which not only victimized credit card holders and issuers, but also a prominent U.S. payment processing firm whose systems were exploited to conduct the card checks.
Try2Check took advantage of the unnamed company’s “preauthorization” service, whereby a business — such as a hotel — requests that the payment processing fi...
