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November 18, 2019

Why Were the Russians So Set Against This Hacker Being Extradited?

This post was originally published on this siteThe Russian government has for the past four years been fighting to keep 29-year-old alleged cybercriminal Alexei Burkov from being extradited by Israel to the United States. When Israeli authorities turned down requests to send him back to Russia — supposedly to face separate hacking charges there — the Russians then imprisoned an Israeli woman for seven years on trumped-up drug charges in a bid to trade prisoners. That effort failed as well, and Burkov had his first appearance in a U.S. court last week. What follows are some clues that might explain why […]
June 22, 2022

Meet the Administrators of the RSOCKS Proxy Botnet

This post was originally published on this siteAuthorities in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. last week said they dismantled the “RSOCKS” botnet, a collection of millions of hacked devices that were sold as “proxies” to cybercriminals looking for ways to route their malicious traffic through someone else’s computer. While the coordinated action did not name the Russian hackers allegedly behind RSOCKS, KrebsOnSecurity has identified its owner as a 35-year-old Russian man living abroad who also runs the world’s top Russian spamming forum. The RUSdot mailer, the email spamming tool made and sold by the administrator of […]
September 23, 2022

Accused Russian RSOCKS Botmaster Arrested, Requests Extradition to U.S.

This post was originally published on this siteA 36-year-old Russian man recently identified by KrebsOnSecurity as the likely proprietor of the massive RSOCKS botnet has been arrested in Bulgaria at the request of U.S. authorities. At a court hearing in Bulgaria this month, the accused hacker requested and was granted extradition to the United States, reportedly telling the judge, “America is looking for me because I have enormous information and they need it.” A copy of the passport for Denis Kloster, as posted to his Vkontakte page in 2019. On June 22, KrebsOnSecurity published Meet the Administrators of the RSOCKS […]
January 24, 2023

Administrator of RSOCKS Proxy Botnet Pleads Guilty

This post was originally published on this siteDenis Emelyantsev, a 36-year-old Russian man accused of running a massive botnet called RSOCKS that stitched malware into millions of devices worldwide, pleaded guilty to two counts of computer crime violations in a California courtroom this week. The plea comes just months after Emelyantsev was extradited from Bulgaria, where he told investigators, “America is looking for me because I have enormous information and they need it.” A copy of the passport for Denis Emelyantsev, a.k.a. Denis Kloster, as posted to his Vkontakte page in 2019. First advertised in the cybercrime underground in 2014, […]