US announces charges in JPMorgan hacking case

US prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled criminal charges accusing three men of helping run a sprawling series of hacking and fraud schemes, including a huge 2014 attack against JPMorgan Chase & Co, that generated hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profit.

Gery Shalon, Joshua Samuel Aaron and Ziv Orenstein were charged in a 23-count indictment with alleged crimes against at least nine financial services companies and media outlets, and which involved online casinos, payment processing for criminals, and an illegal bitcoin exchange.

A fourth man, Anthony Murgio, was also charged over the bitcoin exchange, Coin.mx.

Tuesday's charges are the first tied to the JPMorgan attack, which compromised information in 83 million customer accounts in what prosecutors called the largest theft of customer data from a U.S. financial institution.

Authorities said Shalon and Aaron executed that hacking, using a computer server in Egypt that they had rented under an alias that Shalon often used.

E*Trade Financial Corp (ETFC.O), Scottrade Inc and News Corp's (NWSA.O) Dow Jones unit, which publishes The Wall Street Journal, were also targeted by defendants in the case, a law enforcement source said.

Tuesday's charges also substantially expand a criminal case first announced in July, and cover alleged wrongdoing dating back to 2007.

Shalon, 31, and Orenstein, 40, are Israeli nationals who were arrested in July, while Aaron, 31, is a U.S. citizen who has lived in Moscow and Tel Aviv, authorities have said. Murgio, from Florida, was also arrested in July.