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:
- IOCTA 2023: forget hackers in a hoodie, cybercrime has become a big business
July 17, 2023
Forget the cliché of a solitary figure in a hoodie hunched over a keyboard in a dark room crunching lines of codes. It is an image that no longer accurately reflects today’s cybercrime landscape, where criminals operate as business-like syndicates across borders. Europol’s ninth Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA), whose first module is published today, ...
- FBI worked with Ukraine intelligence agency to remove social media accounts
July 10, 2023
The FBI colluded with a Ukrainian intelligence agency in an effort to disrupt Russian disinformation campaigns by flagging social media accounts in a failed effort that ensnared a verified Russian-language U.S. State Department account and others, the House Judiciary Committee said in a report released Monday. The report said the FBI partnered with the SBU, one ...
- Telegram has become a window into war
July 7, 2023
Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Telegram has gained an outsize influence on one of the world’s most watched conflicts. “Telegram is fantastic for many, many reasons and for the fact that we’ve managed to see what is happening at such a crucial point in history,” says Jordan Wildon, digital investigator and founder ...
- France set to allow police to spy on suspects through remote phone access
July 6, 2023
Part of a wider justice reform bill, the spying provision has been attacked by the left and rights defenders as an authoritarian snoopers’ charter, though Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insists it would affect only “dozens of cases a year”. Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well as phones, the measure would allow geolocation of ...
- EU set to approve the use of spyware to uncover confidential journalist sources
June 23, 2023
The European Union is set to approve new laws that would let governments spy on journalists in the name of national security. The legislation would expand legal ‘loopholes’ that let governments install spyware on journalist’s phones and computers, including British reporters working in the EU, press freedom campaigners warned. The draft legislation, that has now been ...
- Ghana’s EOCO collaborates with Nigeria’s EFCC in cybercrime fight
June 21, 2023
Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) is fostering close collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of Nigeria in the fight against cybercrime. Combining survey results from INTERPOL showed an increase of 132 per cent in reported cybercrime between 2013 and 2015, with an average of USD2.7 million from businesses and USD422, 000 ...