Security firm IntelCrawler says it has identified Target malware author

By Hayley Tsukayama, WashPost, Published: January 17

Security firm IntelCrawler said Friday that it has identified a Russian teenager as the author of the malware probably used in the cyberattacks against Target and Neiman Marcus, and that it expects more retailers to acknowledge that their systems were breached.

In a report posted online, the Sherman Oaks, Calif., company said the author of the malware used in the attacks has sold more than 60 versions of the software to cybercriminals in Eastern Europe and other countries.

The firm said the 17-year-old has roots in St. Petersburg. He reportedly has a reputation as a “very well known” programmer in underground marketplaces for malicious code, the report said.

The company said the teenager did not perpetrate the attacks, but that he wrote the malicious programs — software known as BlackPOS — used to infect the sales systems at Target and Neiman Marcus. Andrew Komarov, the chief executive of IntelCrawler, said the attackers who bought the software entered retailers’ systems by trying several easy passwords to access the registers remotely.

(More here.)