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Showing posts with label Hackers Arrested. Show all posts
Malicious actor
African Cyber Surge II BEC Cyber Crime Cyber Surge cybercrime gang Hackers Arrested Interpol Malicious actor

Interpol Operation: 14 Arrested, Allegedly Involved in Scamming Victims of $40 Million


Another Interpol operation detained 14 suspects and identified 20,674 suspected networks spread across 25 African nations that international law enforcement has connected to more than $40 million in losses due to cybercrime.

Operation Africa Cyber Surge II

The police operation, with combined efforts of Interpol, African law enforcement and private-sector security firms, commenced in April and lasted for four months. It was conducted in order to exterminate cyber malpractices like phishing, business email compromise (BEC) and other online scams. 

The international agency informed that the operation was conducted with the help and on-the-ground operational support of several infosec companies like Group-IB, Interpol and Uppsala Security. Their efforts helped in making three arrests in Cameroon related to an online scam involving the fake sale of artwork valued at $850,000.

Group-IB, that previously collaborated with Interpol on operations, gathered and communicated more than 1,000 indicators from its threat intelligence.

"Collaboration and intelligence sharing should be at the heart of cybersecurity operations, and Group-IB stands ready to make a further contribution to this end, in line with our core strategic mission of fighting against cybercrime in all its forms," Group-IB CEO Dmitry Volkov stated on Friday.

Information gathered by Group-IB and other private partners like Trend Micro, Kaspersky, and Coinbase aided in formulating some 150 Interpol analytical reports with data containing ‘intel on cyber threats’ from different countries. 

Details in the report included:

  • 3,786 malicious command and control servers
  • 14,134 victim IPs linked to data stealer cases
  • 1,415 phishing links and domains 
  • 939 scam IPs 
  • More than 400 other malicious URLs, IPs and botnets. 

The first phase of the operation was carried out between July 2022 and November 2022 and resulted in a number of investigations followed by operations against threat actors in the region. 

The most recent arrests come after months of similar cybercrime activities across Africa as international law enforcement works to dismantle cybercrime networks that operate out of various African nations.

Over 100 people were detained last week, according to Interpol, throughout the EU and Africa. Cops also recovered assets worth more than € 2.15 million ($2.4 million) that belonged to the Black Axe organized crime and cybercrime group.

In July 2023, cops in Côte d'Ivoire confirmed to have arrested a suspect, who was apparently a ‘key figure’ of cybercrime group – OPER1ER – responsible for defrauding banks and financial firms across 15 countries.

Interpol in a statement reported that the cybercrime group has defrauded the firms of a sum between $11 million to $30 million, with their targets spreading across Africa, Asia and Latin America.  

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Online Shopping
Cyber Fraud CyberCrime Hackers Arrested Hong Kong Online Scam Online Shopping

Hong Kong: 43 Suspects Arrested For Defrauding HK$12 Million From Victims Via Online Shopping Scams and Love Frauds

 

As a part of the attempts to combat cybercrimes and frauds, Hong Kong has reportedly detained 43 people, with suspicion of being involved in a series of citywide raids during a week-long operation.
 
According to the police force, the arrested suspects between the age of 17 and 75 include waiters, technicians, workers, and unemployed people. During the operation, code-named Skyrocket, police officers seized the suspect’s mobile phones and bank cards.
 
The accused, involving 28 men and 15 women arrested between October 20 to 26, were allegedly deceiving victims of HK$12 million (1.5 million USD) in a total of 37 cases including internet love scams and shopping frauds, the police force reported on Friday.
 
The victims compromised between several hundred Hong Kong to about HK$900,000, says Senior Inspector Thomas Anthony Lo of the Wan Chai district crime squad.
 
The suspects were arrested for acquiring property by deceiving victims, particularly via money laundering. They included bank account holders, who were used to collect and launder crime proceeds.
 
As announced by the force, all the detained suspects were later released on bail, with none of them being charged. Although they are required to report back to the police next month.
 
Money laundering, in Hong Kong, is a punishable offense, involving a maximum sentence of 14 years and a fine of HK$5 million, while obtaining property via fraud carried a maximum sentence of up to 10 years behind the bars.
 
In a similar case, detectives from the Yau Tsim district crime squad detained two men, suspected of being involved in an online shopping scam. Reportedly, the suspects impersonated online buyers, befooling at least 10 victims into selling them valuables worth more than HK$1.5 million, but used cheques that bounced to pay for the goods.
 
The police were introduced to the case after one of the victims, a 41-year-old man reported to them on October 10, it was after he was tricked into falling for the scam and losing a HK$7,000 bracelet.
 
The two suspects aged 34 and 40 were later arrested from their flats in Hong Konk, on Wednesday. Additionally, the police recovered a HK$70,000 handbag from one of the flats, that belonged to one of the victims. While the investigation is still ongoing, more arrests are possible, the police force states.
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Russian Hackers
Cyber Crime Cyber Crime Report Hackers Arrested National Cyber Security Russian Hackers

Russian hacker arrested in US who may have information about Russian interference in American elections

According to Bloomberg sources in the Russian and American security and intelligence agencies, Klyushin is a Kremlin insider and even a year and a half ago received a state award from Putin, the Order of Honor.

They added that Klyushin has access to documents that relate to the Russian campaign to hack the servers of the Democratic Party during the US elections in 2016. According to them, these documents confirm that the hacking was carried out by a group of hackers from the GRU, which is known under the names Fancy Bear and APT28. In addition, some sources expressed the opinion that Klyushin has access to secret records of other high-ranking GRU operations abroad. All this can make Klyushin a useful source of information for the US authorities, especially if he asks the court for leniency.

Another argument that Klyushin has this valuable information for the U.S. is that his subordinate at M13 was former ex-GRU operative Ivan Yermakov. In 2018, he was one of the defendants accused of hacking into the computer systems of the Democratic Party.

Recall that on December 19, Switzerland extradited Klyushin to the United States. He is suspected of illegal trading in securities worth tens of millions of dollars. Klyushin is the head of the M13 company, which has developed the Katyusha media monitoring system for the Ministry of Defense and the Presidential Administration.

In 2017, The Insider managed to prove that the Fancy Bear group consists of employees of the military unit 26165 GRU. A year later, this data was confirmed by the US Department of Justice, officially bringing charges against a group of hackers. The most famous operation APT28 was the hacking of the servers of the Democratic Party in 2016, designed to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

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Russian Hackers
Cyber Crime Game Hacking Hackers Arrested Russian Hackers

Hacker who developed cheats for "World of Tanks" was brought to court

For several years, on his website, a native of Yekaterinburg, Andrei Kirsanov, according to police, managed to sell thousands of packages with bots and cheat programs that allowed users to receive unfair advantages over other players. The damage caused to the creators of games is estimated at 670 million rubles ($9 million).

A Moscow court has begun considering a criminal case against Yekaterinburg resident Andrey Kirsanov, accused of creating, using and distributing malicious computer programs.

It should be noted that before that no one was brought to criminal responsibility just for the interference in the gaming computer industry.

The defendant in the case was the Belarusian company Wargaming, a publisher and developer of computer games, including the popular online tank and naval action World of Tanks and World of Warships.

In them, players take control of military equipment - tanks and ships - and participate in online battles. For winning such battles, they receive in-game currency and experience points, which allow them to develop and discover new, more powerful equipment.

According to the company's representatives, since the release of the games, a large number of malicious programs have been created for them that allow users to gain unfair advantages over other players — bots and cheats. According to Wargaming, some users lose interest in the game, including due to the fact that rivals use such malware. Representatives of the company said that only last year more than 10 thousand bots were excluded from the game in World of Tanks.

As the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia have established, since 2015, hackers sold bots and cheat programs for playing World of Tanks and World of Warships through the Cyber ​​Tank and Cyber ​​Ship websites.

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Ukrainian Hacker
Cyber Crime Hackers Arrested Russia Russian Hackers Ukrainian Hacker

Russians and Ukrainians accused of cybercrimes face 145 and 115 years in prison in the United States

The US Treasury has added Ukrainian Yaroslav Vasinsky and Russian Yevgeny Polyanin, accused of cyberattacks as part of the hacker group REvil, to the so-called SDN List. The persons included in it have their assets frozen, and US citizens are prohibited from doing business with foreigners on the list.

The Estonian crypto bank Chatex was also included in the sanctions list. The US Treasury Department said that sanctions are being imposed against the bank for participating in cyber ransomware in the US and for exchanging cryptocurrencies on the Chatex platform.

Yaroslav Vasinsky was arrested in Poland in October on charges of hacking the Kaseya business software provider in Florida (occurred on July 4). Polyanin remains at large, but, like Vasinsky, he, according to the US Department of Justice, participated in the operations of the hacker group REvil.

Hackers spread a malicious ransomware program among 1,500 Kaseya customers, encrypting their data and forcing some to disconnect for several days. The US suggests that the attack was carried out by the hacker group REvil. It accused Vasinsky and Polyanin of cyber hacking and conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering. The US Treasury reported that the victims of the group paid it more than $200 million in bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.

The court materials indicate that the Ukrainian hacker and his accomplices began to engage in the introduction of malware in April 2019. In total, by the beginning of November, the police and special services had identified about two dozen suspects in cyberattacks in 71 countries on companies and infrastructure using REvil ransomware. So, two people were arrested in Romania, five in South Korea.

The hacker group REvil (also known as Sodinokibi) has been working on the darknet since 2019. Kaspersky Lab said in its research in May 2021 that REvil distributes its encryption virus through partners (other hackers) who receive 60-75% of the ransom.


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Hackers Arrested
Cyber Crime Hackers Arrested

Hacker from Belarus has been detained in Russia at the request of Interpol

Belarusian hacker and YouTube blogger Sergei Pavlovich was detained in St. Petersburg. He is on the international wanted list under a US warrant, where he is charged with the largest theft of personal data from 170 million credit cards, thanks to which more than $1 billion was stolen. However, he was quickly released.

Sergei Pavlovich was detained by police officers on November 1 near the Emerald Hotel in St. Petersburg. A 38-year-old citizen of Belarus came to the city for the weekend, after he checked into the hotel, law enforcement agencies immediately detained him. Sergei Pavlovich was taken to the nearest police station, where he was held for several hours, and then released.

It is possible that such a decision was made because the Belarusian citizen is on the international wanted list under a US warrant, with which Russia does not have a bilateral agreement on the mutual extradition of suspects and accused.

After returning from the police station, Sergey Pavlovich hastened to reassure his subscribers in social networks by publishing a story with the message: “Alive, healthy and free”, and promised to broadcast on YouTube to answer all questions.

In the United States, Mr. Pavlovich has been accused of the largest theft of personal data on 170 million credit cards since 2008. Then more than $1 billion was stolen.

There is already a convict in this case in the United States. In 2016, an American court found Albert Gonzalez, the founder of the ShadowCrew international carder exchange, guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

According to the American investigation, other people participated in the scheme, including Sergey Pavlovich, who is accused of organizing the transfer of unauthorized access devices. This crime is punishable by up to life imprisonment.

However, Sergey Pavlovich has already been in prison for cybercrimes. In 2009, he was sentenced to 10 years in a penal colony in Belarus for carding but was released early in 2015. In 2014, while still in prison, the hacker wrote the book “How I stole a million. Confession of a repentant carder.” After being released from prison, the hacker began to develop his YouTube channel.

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TrickBot
Cyber Crime Hackers Arrested Russian Hacker TrickBot

Russian accused of developing programs for the Trickbot hacker network extradited from South Korea to US

 The US Department of Justice said that the Russian is a member of a hacker group that used the Trickbot malicious network. The network has been used to attack "millions of computers" around the world, including schools, banks, healthcare, energy and agricultural companies, the prosecution said.

According to the ministry's press release, 38-year-old Vladimir Dunaev and his accomplices stole money and confidential information from November 2015 until August 2020, and also damaged computer systems. Individuals, financial and state institutions, utilities and private enterprises are among the victims of the hackers' actions.

The US Department of Justice clarifies that Mr. Dunaev was allegedly one of the developers of malware for the Trickbot network. He was engaged in creating modifications for the browser and helped malicious software bypass security programs.

The Russian was extradited from South Korea to the United States last week, on October 20. He is charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and identity theft, conspiracy to commit information technology and banking fraud, and conspiracy to launder money. In total, more than 10 people are involved in the case, including four Russians and one Ukrainian.

In June, similar charges were brought against a citizen of Latvia, Anna Witte, whom the US Justice Department also considers a member of the hacker group that used Trickbot. This network, according to the American side, was located in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Republic of Suriname (South America). The Washington Post wrote that Trickbot is allegedly controlled by Russian-speaking attackers. In November 2020, the network was disconnected, the American company Microsoft took part in the special operation.

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United States
Cyber Crime France Hacker Hackers Arrested Kyiv Ukraine United States

25-Yr Old Hacker Detained by Ukraine Police

 

Following a collaborative international law enforcement investigation, two ransomware syndicates were apprehended in Ukraine. On Sept. 28, police investigators from Ukraine, the United States, and France arrested a 25-year-old hacker in Kyiv to put an end to a large cybercrime incident that cost more than $150 million worldwide. 

According to authorities, the suspect allegedly sought a ransom in turn of the victims' stolen information as of Oct. 4. The hacker is thought to have obtained this information by sending malware-infected phishing emails to workers of the organizations he targeted. 

As per the authorities, the cybercriminal, who hadn't been recognized, attacked over 100 enterprises in Europe and the United States, including world-famous energy and tourism companies. Europol noted that the hacker had a co-conspirator who assisted him in withdrawing funds from victims. 

Law enforcement investigators discovered and seized $375,000 in cash, two luxury automobiles, computers, and smartphones in the suspect's Scandinavian-styled Kyiv flat. 

Since virtual transactions are difficult to track, hackers frequently demand ransom in cryptocurrencies. Following inspections of the criminal's flat, authorities discovered that the Ukrainian cyber-criminal had over $1.3 million in cryptocurrencies in his possession. According to the authorities, he might face up to twelve years behind bars for breaching cybercrime and money laundering rules. 

"As a result, computer equipment, mobile phones, vehicles, and more than 360 thousand dollars in cash were seized. In addition, $1.3 million was blocked on the attacker's cryptocurrencies," the police said. 

Hackers from Ukraine and Russia rarely attack systems and networks in their nations, instead preferring to infect computers in Western Europe and the United States. Ukrainian cybercriminals are typically young, between the ages of 15 and 30, with no criminal history as well as a strong command of computer technology and mathematics. Their monthly income starts at $5,000, which is significantly higher than the $2,000 that tech experts in Ukraine might earn. 

Authorities all across the world are attempting to reverse the trend of ransomware assaults, which have become a lucrative business in recent years. Hackers, who are mostly from Eastern Europe, attack international companies, universities, government agencies, and even crucial infrastructures such as hospitals and gas stations.
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