Charges brought in largest financial cyber hacking

(BBC) US prosecutors have charged three men in connection with the largest cyber-attack in US history.

Details of 100 million people were accessed by cyberthieves between 2012 and the summer of 2015.

At a press conference on Tuesday, US federal prosecutor Preet Bharara called the scheme “securities fraud on cyber-steroids”.

Twelve institutions were victims of the hacking, including JP Morgan, Fidelity and Dow Jones.

US prosecutors said they were expanding charges against two Israeli men, Gery Shalon and Ziv Orenstein, as well as a US citizen, Joshua Samuel Aaron.

Charges against the three men were expanded to include computer hacking and identity theft among 21 other counts.

The men allegedly manipulated stock prices by selling shares of companies to individuals whose contact information they had stolen and then dumping their own shares causing the price to fall.

The men were also charged with running an illegal payment processing business that they used to collect $18m (£11.9m) in fees.

Prosecutors claim the men hacked into to competitors systems to spy and hacked a credit card company investigating there payment process business so they would know how to avoid detection.

Separate charges have also been brought against a Florida man, Anthony Murgio, who operated a unlicensed digital currency service and had previously been linked to the breach at JP Morgan.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission had already filed civil charges related to securities fraud against Mr Shalon, Mr Aaron and Mr Orenstein.

Mr Aaron, 31, was a fugitive, believed to be living in Moscow, while Mr Shalon, 31, and Mr Orenstein, also 40, were in custody in Israel.