Two New York men arrested for conspiring with Russians to hack JFK taxi system

Two New York men were arrested for conspiring with Russian nationals to hack the taxi dispatch system at John F. Kennedy International Airport so they could manipulate the line and charge drivers for access to the front of the queue, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Daniel Abayev and Peter Leyman, both 48, were taken into custody on Tuesday morning in Queens and charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York announced.

Beginning in 2019, the two allegedly worked with hackers based in Russia to infiltrate JFK’s taxi dispatch system by bribing someone to install malware on computers connected to the system, stealing computer tablets and using Wi-Fi to break in, prosecutors alleged.