Two men arrested for allegedly hacking JFK taxi dispatch system
by Jess Weatherbed from The Verge - All Posts on (#673M1)
Prosecutors allege that the pair enabled up to 1,000 taxi trips to fraudulently bypass the computer-controlled JFK taxi dispatch system a day. | Image: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Two US citizens have been arrested and accused of conspiring with Russian nationals to hack the taxi dispatch system at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), charging cab drivers a $10 fee to access the front of the queue between September 2019 and September 2021.
Daniel Abayev and Peter Leyman (both 48 and from Queens, New York) first successfully hacked the dispatch system in 2019 with the help of unnamed Russian nationals, according to a DOJ indictment filed in the Southern District of New York. Leyman and Abayev accessed the system to move specific taxis to the front of the line, says the DOJ, charging drivers a $10 fee for the privilege. Members of the hacking scheme also offered to waive the $10 fee in exchange for...