Evil Corp. – Network Securitas

December 16, 2019

Inside ‘Evil Corp,’ a $100M Cybercrime Menace

This post was originally published on this siteThe U.S. Justice Department this month offered a $5 million bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a Russian man indicted for allegedly orchestrating a vast, international cybercrime network that called itself “Evil Corp” and stole roughly $100 million from businesses and consumers. As it happens, for several years KrebsOnSecurity closely monitored the day-to-day communications and activities of the accused and his accomplices. What follows is an insider’s look at the back-end operations of this gang. Image: FBI The $5 million reward is being offered for 32 year-old Maksim V. Yakubets, […]

January 27, 2020

Russian Cybercrime Boss Burkov Pleads Guilty

This post was originally published on this siteAleksei Burkov, an ultra-connected Russian hacker once described as “an asset of supreme importance” to Moscow, has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to running a site that sold stolen payment card data and to administering a highly secretive crime forum that counted among its members some of the most elite Russian cybercrooks. Aleksei Burkov, seated second from right, attends a hearing in Jerusalem in 2015. Andrei Shirokov / Tass via Getty Images. Burkov, 29, admitted to running CardPlanet, a site that sold more than 150,000 stolen credit card accounts, and to being […]

October 1, 2020

Ransomware Victims That Pay Up Could Incur Steep Fines from Uncle Sam

This post was originally published on this siteCompanies victimized by ransomware and firms that facilitate negotiations with ransomware extortionists could face steep fines from the U.S. federal government if the crooks who profit from the attack are already under economic sanctions, the Treasury Department warned today. Image: Shutterstock In its advisory (PDF), the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said “companies that facilitate ransomware payments to cyber actors on behalf of victims, including financial institutions, cyber insurance firms, and companies involved in digital forensics and incident response, not only encourage future ransomware payment demands but also may risk violating […]

August 5, 2021

Ransomware Gangs and the Name Game Distraction

This post was originally published on this siteIt’s nice when ransomware gangs have their bitcoin stolen, malware servers shut down, or are otherwise forced to disband. We hang on to these occasional victories because history tells us that most ransomware moneymaking collectives don’t go away so much as reinvent themselves under a new name, with new rules, targets and weaponry. Indeed, some of the most destructive and costly ransomware groups are now in their third incarnation. A rough timeline of major ransomware operations and their reputed links over time. Reinvention is a basic survival skill in the cybercrime business. Among […]