Trial Set For Russian PayPal Hacker

- SEATTLE (04/25/01) - One of two young Russiansarrested in an FBI sting for hacking into Internet paymentsprovider PayPal and Western Union, is scheduled to go on trial May29th on charges of violating the Computer Crimes and Abuse Act.Vasiliy Gorshkov, who is being held without bail in Seattle, wasalso charged with several counts of conspiracy and wire fraud. Hisalleged accomplice, 20-year-old Alexey Ivanov, has been extraditedto Connecticut, where he also faces charges. The FBI lured the twohackers from their native Russia by setting up a phony Internetsecurity firm and offering them jobs. The two are accused of amassive computer-hacking scheme which stole thousands ofcredit-card numbers from dozens of firms, including PayPal, thecountry's largest Internet-based person-to-person payments company.They allegedly created a fake 'mirror' Internet site, identical toPayPal's home page, then used a special program to locate PayPal'scustomers on the Internet and told them to log on to the fake, ormirror, site. Customers then logged on to the mirror site withtheir user names and passwords, which the hackersrecorded.