A Russian national who sold the keys to corporate networks faces nearly seven years in a US prison after prosecutors tied his handiwork to a string of ransomware attacks costing victims millions of dollars.
Aleksei Volkov, 26, was sentenced to 81 months behind bars for his role as an initial access broker, a behind-the-scenes operator who breaks into company systems then sells that foothold to other criminals. He was extradited from Italy to the US to face the charges, part of a broader push by authorities to pursue enablers of cybercrime rather than just the crews that carry out the attacks. Prosecutors say Volkov broke into company networks and sold that access on criminal forums, effectively handing over ready-made entry points to ransomware groups and other extortion outfits.
Read more…
Source: The Register News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- U.S. accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
July 24, 2026
The U.S. Justice Department is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. border authorities with a passcode that wiped the contents of his phone, according to an indictment and media reports. This is thought to be the first known case in the United States where federal prosecutors have charged someone for the alleged destruction of data ...
- FBI Warns of Scammers Impersonating the IC3
July 20, 2026
This Public Service Announcement contains updated information about an ongoing fraud scheme where criminal scammers are impersonating FBI personnel facilitating Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) complaints to deceive and revictimize individuals. This scheme combines several exploitation tactics to include the targeting of previous victims, the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated videos to create fictitious or misleading promotional ...
- Hackers breached DHS after alarms were twice ruled ‘false positives’
July 17, 2026
Hackers managed to find their way into the US Department of Homeland Security’s primary information sharing platform, gaining unfettered access to the HSIN network that hosts unclassified information that multiple US agencies and international rely on. The hack allowed the attackers to modify server files, run malicious code and steal credential files while installing backdoors and ...
- Hackers who gained access to heart of London transport network jailed
July 16, 2026
The data of millions of commuters was stolen, Londoners were left out of pocket and 27,000 Transport for London staff were forced to reset their passwords. Over four days in 2024 a pair of teenage hackers had London’s transport network at their mercy. The hackers had burrowed into the heart of Transport for London’s IT systems and held ...
- NetNut cracked as Google and FBI target 2 million-device botnet
July 3, 2026
Tech companies working with US law enforcement “significantly degraded” the NetNut residential proxy network as part of an ongoing effort to disrupt the tools cybercriminals use to conceal their activity, say researchers. The work was carried out by Google, Lumen, Shadowserver, the FBI, and others, and marks a continuation of the IPIDEA proxy network disruption from January. According to Google Cloud, ...
- FBI: Cyber Criminal Group TeamPCP
July 2, 2026
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is releasing this FLASH to highlight the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with the cyber criminal group TeamPCP. TeamPCP actors have conducted large-scale software supply chain compromises by targeting widely used developers and security tools, gaining access to victim environments and extracting sensitive ...