UPDATE: Romanian hacker costs Kaspersky USD 2.5 mln

A Romanian hacker caused a USD 2.5 million damage to anti-virus producer Kaspersky after hacking its website and re-directing users that wanted to buy antivirus products to a fake website, according to the Romanian Police.

However, Kaspersky Lab says no attacks on the usa.kaspersky.com domain have been recorded in recent years. "The case the Romanian press is reporting on took place in February of 2009. In addition to the fact this incident happened long ago we confirm it did not cause any damage to users," according to an official statement from the company. "Kaspersky Lab previously reported that after conducting the attack, the attackers posted on their blog claiming they had gained access to “personal details” and “activation codes”. However, a thorough analysis conducted by Kaspersky Lab’s web security experts immediately following the attack revealed that although the attack had penetrated a support site, no sensitive data was compromised. No activation codes or personal data were leaked as a result of the attack," the statement goes on. Romanian Gabriel Ene, who caused the damage to the anti-virus company is part of a network of Romanians who committed online fraud between October 2010 and April 2012. They also accessed servers and used voice-over-IP accounts to call premium phone lines in UK, Germany, Spain, Taiwan and Sierra Leone, for which they received a commission. The total damage caused stood at EUR 4 million, and the Romanians received a fee of minimum 10 percent, or some EUR 400,000. Other members of this group were involved in phishing activities. They posted fake car sale announcements on US websites and asked for an advance payment or bank account or credit card data, which were then used to transfer money into the fraudsters' accounts. Romanian prosecutors searched their homes and brought in 17 Romanians for questioning, after having worked together with the Secret Service and the FBI. editor@romania-insider.com