Four Romanians, known in cybercriminal underground as dobitoc212, xjuniior, iulyvip and r_florinus were indicted by US authorities for hacking into computing devices belonging to more than 200 businesses, especially targeting point-of-sale and checkout systems to steal credit card information.

According to the official indictment provided by Wired, the main targets were more than 150 Subway restaurants spread throughout the United States, but also other 50 retailers that were unnamed.

The figures show that more than 80,000 customers were affected by the operation, millions being gained by the gang with the use of stolen credit card data.

Starting in 2008, the Romanians began installing keyloggers and other spyware to steal the information from all the customers that utilized the infected machines. By using specialized software, they managed to identify the vulnerable devices, later accessing them by guessing or by cracking their passwords.

After obtaining the information and storing it on “dump sites,” they cloned some credit cards and used them to make illegal purchases, mainly in Europe, while the other part of the data was sold.

Now, the defendants, Adrian-Tiberiu Oprea, Iulian Dolan, Cezar Iulian Butu and Florin Radu, aged between 23 and 27, are charged with four counts, one of which includes “accessing a computer without authorization and exceeding authorization,” “knowingly, and with intent to defraud, accessing a protected computer without authorization” and “intentionally causing damage without authorization."

The other counts refer to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with access devices.

Besides the four individuals, two others were involved in the operation, but they were only named by their online monikers since they were not charged. Two of the suspects were apprehended while they tried to enter the US, one of them was taken into custody in Romania and Florin Radu is still at large.