Inside the TJX/Heartland Investigations

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With the recent sentencing of the last of Albert Gonzalez' co-conspirators in the TJX and Heartland data breaches, a long, hard criminal investigation comes to a close.

In an exclusive interview, Kim Peretti, former senior counsel with the Department of Justice, offers an inside look at these investigations, detailing:

Peretti is a former Senior Counsel in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice, located in Washington, DC.

At the Department of Justice, Peretti investigated and prosecuted multi-agency and multi-district computer crime and financial fraud cases, especially those involving large scale data breaches, identity theft, and online payment systems. She was co-lead prosecutor in the Department's largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted - a case in which several members of an international retail hacking ring were convicted of stealing over 40 million credit and debit cards. She also co-led the benchmark prosecution of a global internet-based payment system convicted of money laundering and illegal money transmitting.

TOM FIELD: Let's look back on the Albert Gonzalez prosecution and sentencing. What does it all mean? Hi, this is Tom Field, Editorial Director with Information Security Media Group. I'm talking today with Kim Peretti, formerly the Department of Justice prosecutor who led the prosecution of Albert Gonzalez. Kim, it's such a pleasure to catch up with you.

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KIM PERETTI: Thanks, Tom. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with your members today.

FIELD: Well, Kim, it's been about a month now. Gonzalez and his conspirators have all been sentenced. What is the significance of these penalties now that they have finally come down?

PERETTI: Well, it is certainly significant because of the length, and particularly of Gonzalez's sentence of 20 years. It's the longest ever identify theft or cybercrime sentence that I'm aware of. So hopefully, it will have an impact on the broader hacking community and will certainly act as a general deterrent. You know, in looking back at the eight years that I was prosecuting these types of crimes, it may also be a signal that we'll start seeing and continue to see longer sentences for these types of financial cyber crimes in particular. I recall earlier in my career that I would be at one sentencing after another where the judges would certainly explain that this was significant type of crime, but at the end they would sort of choose the balance of special deterrence over general deterrence, which would result in looking at the individual more and saying, "Well. I'm going to give you a second change. I'm going to give you probation," or just a very minimal time in prison. Whereas in this recent string, each judge really made it clear in the record the importance here of general deterrence and sending a message to the community about how significant this is. Now it certainly was one of the biggest conspiracies. I think even one judge said this must be the only time when he's on the bench that he will see a $400 million conspiracy, but the individuals were the same that I've seen throughout my career before judges -- you know. young 20s, when this crime occurred, good background, and this set of cases really saw that general deterrence be prominent.

FIELD: Well, Kim, you put it in prospective when you talk about having devoted eight years to this, and I know that certainly the Gonzalez prosecution -- you've been involved with Gonzalez for a number of years. Looking at this in perspective, what was the hardest part about the Gonzalez prosecution?