SpyEye hacker extradited to the U.S.

The United States has had little luck with landing Kim Dotcom or Julian Assange, but it has managed to grab a hacker. Hamza Bendelladj, known online as Bx1 is an Algerian hacker who was captured and extradited from Thailand. He was arrested back in January while moving through the Bangkok airport on his way from Malaysia.

Bendelladj stands accused of hijacking customer accounts at more than 200 financial institutions using the SpyEye program. Alleged totals of more than 100 million USD over the past five years have been indicated. SpyEye allowed the attacker to alter web pages displayed in a person’s web browser and trick them into entering personal data.

Variants of both SpyEye and Zeus have been used by criminals to automate the process of transferring money.  Bendelladj faces 23 charges from a 2011 indictment. He arrived in Atlanta on Thursday and was arraigned on Friday. He faces up to 30 years in prison and as much as a 14 million USD fine. Security researcher Brian Krebs has posted a PDF of the indictment on his site.

Image: Computer Hacker by BigStock