Two men have been charged for allegedly conspiring with Russian hackers to manipulate the taxi dispatch system at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Taxis may wait for several hours at the airport in a holding area before being allowed to pick up passengers. They do so because the fare into Manhattan – $52 presently – or other boroughs is typically substantial enough that it's worth the wait.
Daniel Abayev, 48, and Peter Leyman, 48, are accused of altering the JFK taxi dispatch system to advance selected taxis to the front of the taxi queue in exchange for a $10 payment, according to a federal indictment [PDF] made public on Tuesday.
"As alleged in the indictment, these two defendants — with the help of Russian hackers — took the Port Authority for a ride," said Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a statement. "For years, the defendants' hacking kept honest cab drivers from being able to pick up fares at JFK in the order in which they arrived."
The scheme proved popular with taxi drivers, some of whom were supposedly exempted from the $10 fee when they managed to recruit other drivers to participate. Abayev and Leyman are said to have helped as many 1,000 drivers per day skip the line and to have paid Russian hackers more than $100,000 for "software development," as the bank transfers were described.
Drivers are said to have learned of the scheme by word of mouth and to have coordinated with Abayev and Leyman b ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
