Tag Archive for: Ukrainian

US Extradites Ukrainian Man for Using Botnet to Crack Thousands of Passwords

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The US has charged a Ukrainian man for using an army of computers to help him crack thousands of login passwords each week. 

On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced it had extradited 28-year-old Glib Oleksandr Ivanov-Tolpintsev for carrying out the hacking crimes. Ivanov-Tolpintsev allegedly operated a botnet, a collection of computers that were secretly taken over through malware. The various machines were then used to guess login passwords belonging to users across the globe.

“During the course of the conspiracy, Ivanov-Tolpintsev stated that his botnet was capable of decrypting the login credentials of at least 2,000 computers every week,” the DOJ says.

The Ukrainian then allegedly sold the cracked passwords to cybercriminals through an unnamed online marketplace on the dark web that specialized in selling stolen login credentials. “Once sold on this website, credentials were used to facilitate a wide range of illegal activity, including tax fraud and ransomware attacks,” the Justice Department adds.

Federal investigators didn’t provide many other details, such as how the suspect was caught. But according to the indictment, Ivanov-Tolpintsev began his scheme around May 2016 when he first began inquiring on the dark web marketplace if he could sell cracked login passwords. 

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By April 2017, he told admins of marketplace “he had collected the login credentials of 20,000 compromised computers.” The indictment also notes Ivanov-Tolpintsev sold at least a few login credentials belonging to US victims based in California, Florida, and Maryland.

The extradition occurs as the US has been stepping up efforts to crack down on ransomware, which has been increasingly terrorizing businesses, schools, hospitals, and even critical infrastructure. Ivanov-Tolpintsev was originally arrested last October in Poland before he was extradited to the US. He faces a maximum penalty of 17 years in prison.

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Ukrainian national sentenced to prison for work with criminal hacking group

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A Ukrainian national was sentenced to prison time for his work with a criminal hacking group.

Fedir Hladyr, 35, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday, about a year and a half after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, according to the Department of Justice.

The hacking group, known as FIN7, the Carbanak Group, and the Navigator Group, engaged in a yearslong malware attack that targeted hundreds of U.S. companies, mainly in the restaurant, gambling, and hospitality industries. They stole millions of customers’ banking information and then sold some for profit.

FBI REMOVES ‘MALICIOUS WEB SHELLS’ TIED TO CHINA-LINKED MICROSOFT HACK

Hladyr was arrested in Dresden, Germany, in 2018 and was then extradited to Seattle to stand trial.

“The defendant and his conspirators compromised millions of financial accounts and caused over a billion dollars in losses to Americans and costs to the U.S. economy,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Nicholas McQuaid of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Protecting businesses, both large and small, online is a top priority for the Department of Justice. The department is committed to working with our international partners to hold such cyber criminals accountable, no matter where they reside or how anonymous they think they are.”

The group breached business networks in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. They stole over 20 million customer card records from more than 6,500 point-of-sale terminals. His tenure with the group began when he joined Combi Security, which the DOJ characterized as a “front company” for FIN7. He served as the group’s systems administrator.

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“These cyber thieves orchestrated an elaborate network of hackers and systems to infiltrate businesses and exploit consumers’ personal information,” said Special Agent in Charge Donald M. Voiret of the FBI’s Seattle Field Office. “Their specialized skills to target certain industries amplified the damage…

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Smashing Security #143: Hacking from outer space, Ukrainian cryptomining, and deepfaked Canadians

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And someone has cloned Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson’s voice… All this and much more is discussed in the latest edition of the award-winning “Smashing Security” podcast by computer …
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Facebook sues Ukrainian quiz-makers for stealing user data with malware plugins – The Verge

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Facebook sues Ukrainian quiz-makers for stealing user data with malware plugins  The Verge

Facebook has sued two Ukrainian men for allegedly using quiz apps to scrape Facebook users’ private data and inject advertisements into their News Feeds.

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