Alleged Russian Hacker Pleads Not Guilty After Extradition to United States

A Russian hacker indicted by a United States court for his involvement in online ad fraud schemes that defrauded multiple American companies out of tens of millions of dollars pleaded not guilty on Friday in a courtroom in Brooklyn, New York. Aleksandr Zhukov, 38, was arrested in November last ye...

U.S. Military Members Catfished and Hooked for Thousands of Dollars

A sextortion ring that aimed “catfish” efforts at U.S. military service members has been uncovered. The scam bilked 442 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps out of more than $560,000. An 11-month investigation, dubbed “Operation Surprise Party” and carried out by the...

FBI Takes Down a Massive Advertising Fraud Ring

The FBI announced that it dismantled a large Internet advertising fraud network, and arrested eight people: A 13-count indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Aleksandr Zhukov, Boris Timokhin, Mikhail Andreev, Denis Avdeev, Dmitry Novikov, Sergey Ovsyannikov, Aleksandr...

FBI Sinkholes $38M Global Ad Fraud Operation

The FBI has taken control of 31 web domains in a widespread takedown of a multi-year, global ad fraud campaign, believed to have stolen at least $38 million, partly via a botnet strategy. In addition, eight defendants face a 13-count indictment from a federal court in Brooklyn in the case. The...

Operator of VirusTotal Like Malware-Scanning Service Jailed for 14 Years

A Latvian hacker behind the development and operation of counter antivirus service "Scan4You" has finally been sentenced to 14 years in prison. 37-year-old Ruslans Bondars, described as a Latvian "non-citizen" or "citizen of the former USSR who had been residing in Riga, Latvia," was found guilty...

Russian Hacker Pleads Guilty to Operating Kelihos Botnet

The Russian man who was accused of operating the infamous Kelihos botnet has finally pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court. Peter Yuryevich Levashov , 38, of St. Petersburg, Russia, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in U.S. federal court in Connecticut to computer crime, wire fraud, conspiracy and...

Two Romanian Hackers Extradited to the U.S. Over $18 Million Vishing Scam

Two Romanian hackers have been extradited to the United States to face 31 criminal charges including computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Described as "international computer hackers" by the United States Department of Justice, Teodor Laurent...

Two Romanian Hackers Extradited to the U.S. Over $18 Million Vishing Scam

Two Romanian hackers have been extradited to the United States to face 31 criminal charges including computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Described as "international computer hackers" by the United States Department of Justice, Teodor Laurent...

Romanian Hackers Extradited to U.S. over $18M Vishing Scam

A pair of Romanian hackers have been extradited to the U.S. after allegedly bilking unwitting victims out of more than $18 million in an elaborate voice- and SMS-phishing i.e., vishing/smishing scheme. Teodor Laurentiu Costea and Robert Codrut Dumitrescu were named in the 31-count federal grand...

Of princes and perpetrators: Beware of getting ensnared in 419 scams

We've mentioned before that 419 scams don't always originate from Nigeria. It's a very simple and popular scam that can be attempted by pretty much anyone with a flair for social engineering. Indeed, 419 scams are so associated with the region that many scammers in non-Nigerian countries know the...

A week in security (January 1 – January 7)

New year, new threats, as 2018 gets underway. On our blog, we had dubious searches aplenty for those hunting for Malwarebytes information, and we also covered the huge Meltdown/Spectre bug, affecting hardware going back to 10 years. Other news Coin miners are at it again, with a proof of concept...

Spanish Court Agrees to Extradite Russian Spam King to the United States

Spain's National Court ruled on Tuesday to extradite a 36-year-old Russian computer programmer, accused by American authorities of malicious hacking offences, to the United States, according to a court document. Peter Yuryevich Levashov, also known as Peter Severa, was arrested in April this year...

Russian Lawmaker’ Son Pleads Guilty to $50M Hacking Scam

By Uzair Amir Russian Lawmaker’s Son Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud and Identity This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Russian Lawmaker’ Son Pleads Guilty to $50M Hacking Scam...

Russian Financial Cybercriminal Gets Over 9 Years In U.S. Prison

A 29-year-old Russian-born, Los Angeles resident has been sentenced to over nine years in prison for running botnets of half a million computers and stealing and trafficking tens of thousands of credit card numbers on exclusive Russian-speaking cybercriminal forums. Alexander Tverdokhlebov was...

3 Nigerian Scammers Get 235-Years of Total Jail Sentence in U.S.

You may have heard of hilarious Nigerian scams. My all time favourite is this one: A Nigerian astronaut has been trapped in space for the past 25 years and needs $3 million to get back to Earth, Can you help? Moreover, Nigerians are also good at promising true love and happiness. But You know, Lo...

Blind Trust in Email Could Cost You Your Home

The process of buying or selling a home can be extremely stressful and complex, but imagine the stress that would boil up if -- at settlement -- your money was wired to scammers in another country instead of to the settlement firm or escrow company. Here's the story about a phishing email that co...

US Charges Two Russian Spies & Two Hackers For Hacking 500 Million Yahoo Accounts

The 2014 Yahoo hack disclosed late last year that compromised over 500 million Yahoo user accounts was believed to be carried out by a state-sponsored hacking group. Now, two Russian intelligence officers and two criminal hackers have been charged by the US government in connection with the 2014...

Turning Tables on Nigerian Business Email Scammers

SAN FRANCISCO – Traditional takedowns of cybercrime enterprises generally rely on court orders that facilitate either taking servers offline or sending the criminals malware that helps identify them or their locations. Sometimes, however, the technical option is second best. Researchers at Dell...

Russian Lawmaker's Son Convicted of Stealing 2.9 Million Credit Card Numbers

The son of a prominent Russian lawmaker has been found guilty in the United States of running a hacking scheme that stole and sold 2.9 million US credit card numbers using Point-of-Sale POS malware, costing financial institutions more than $169 Million. Roman Seleznev, 32, the son of Russian...

Ukrainian Hacker Admits Stealing Corporate Press Releases for $30 Million Profit

A 28-year-old Ukrainian hacker has pleaded guilty in the United States to stealing unpublished news releases and using that non-public information in illegal trading to generate more than $30 Million £20.8 Million in illicit profits. Vadym Iermolovych, 28, admitted Monday that he worked with two...