A Ukrainian national is facing an eight year prison sentence for running an online marketplace that sold the personal data of approximately 24 million US citizens.
Vitalii Chychasov, 37, was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit access device fraud and trafficking in unauthorized access devices. In addition to the prison sentence he will forfeit $5 million in assets, the proceeds of fraud, and his control of the various marketplace domains.
Attempting to enter Hungary at the time, Chychasov was arrested in March 2022 for running the SSNDOB Marketplace, which stands for “social security number, date of birth” and operated over various domains including blackjob[.]biz, ssndob[.]club, ssndob[.]vip, and ssndob[.]ws.
He was later extradited to the US in July 2022, a month after SSNDOB was shut down by US, Latvian, and Cypriot authorities.
A Ukrainian national is facing an eight year prison sentence for running an online marketplace that sold the personal data of approximately 24 million US citizens.
Vitalii Chychasov, 37, was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit access device fraud and trafficking in unauthorized access devices. In addition to the prison sentence he will forfeit $5 million in assets, the proceeds of fraud, and his control of the various marketplace domains.
Attempting to enter Hungary at the time, Chychasov was arrested in March 2022 for running the SSNDOB Marketplace, which stands for “social security number, date of birth” and operated over various domains including blackjob[.]biz, ssndob[.]club, ssndob[.]vip, and ssndob[.]ws.
He was later extradited to the US in July 2022, a month after SSNDOB was shut down by US, Latvian, and Cypriot authorities.
The SSNDOB Marketplace dates back more than a decade and was operating as early as 2013, then on the domain ssndob[.]ru.
At the time, full records (fulls), which included full names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth (DoB), and social security numbers (SSNs) were sold for $0.50 per individual. If these “fulls” were located by DoB, they cost $1, and if they were located by ZIP code, they cost $1.50.
Consumer credit reports were also available for a loftier $15, as were background reports for $12, and driver’s license records for $4.
The research, led by infosec investigative journalist Brian Krebs at the time, suggested that the criminals had access to at least five different systems at US-based consumer and business data aggregators. These allegedly included Lexis-Nexis, Dun & Bradstreet, and Kroll Background America.
US authorities estimate that SSNDOB alone has generated more than $19 million in sales over the source of its operation.