The Cyber Crimes You Never Hear About

NARRATOR: Financial institutions go to great lengths to protect themselves against cyber attacks, but as in "Live Free or Die Hard," very little stops the elite hackers from penetrating the most sophisticated technology. TOM KELLERMANN: The hacker underground has developed various weapons in cyberspace that allow them to bypass the encryption, and thus get into these systems and steal your funds. And the average losses associated with cyber heist is $1.3 million. An average bank robbery in the physical world where you have gun or weapon is only $6,000 to $8,000. NARRATOR: This is criminal industry with staggering rewards. In 2005, Miami-based hacker made crime history by pulling off one of the biggest online bank heists of all time, but he's far less known than the likes of Bonnie and Clyde or Billy the Kid. Hacker Alberto Gonzalez would drive through Miami shopping districts, hacking into stores' wireless networks. He wasn't stealing their money. He was fishing for credit card numbers, and he'd struck the mother load. CHRIS WYSOPAL: He broke into retailer through one of their stores and got back to the corporate headquarters, where there was lot of credit card information all stored in one database in one place. NARRATOR: Once Gonzalez had hacked his way into the corporate head office, he would download tens of thousands of customers' credit card details. Gonzalez then sold the stolen credit card details on to Eastern European cyber criminals. In his first year, Gonzales stole an incredible 11.2 million payment cards from retailers across Miami. 12 months later, this had increased to almost 90 million. CHRIS WYSOPAL: That was hitting very, very large retail chains that have thousands of stores and millions of customers, obviously. So he went after really big targets, and he was successful. Gonzalez got greedy. He decided that it had worked, that he didn't think he had left any tracks. And well, technically, one agent versus one hacker, you're kind of same level. The hacker is probably going to be able to outwit him on anything online. But you bring money into it, and the amount of systems, the amount of agencies, the amount of people who are now focused on you is problem. NARRATOR: In July 2007, the year "Live Free or Die Hard" was released, Gonzalez was arrested when an undercover detective followed him into bank. Pretending to use one of the machines, the detective watched as Gonzalez pulled out number of debit cards and withdrew tens of thousands of dollars in cash. Following months of interrogation, authorities also found he had access to over 43 million stolen credit card numbers. Gonzalez was jailed for 20 years, but why didn't this incredible cyber heist make the headlines? TOM KELLERMANN: You don't hear about the bank robberies that occur in cyberspace because of the reality of the reputational risk that would impact the financial institution as whole. Law enforcement, both Europol, the FBI, Secret Service in the US, collaborate heavily with the financial institutions to go after cyber criminals.