The U.S government announces criminal charges against two Iranian and two Russian hackers and added them to FBI’s most-wanted list.
The U.S government announces criminal charges against two Iranian and two Russian hackers and added them to FBI’s most-wanted list.
The two Russian nationals Danil Patokhin and Dmitrii Karasavidi were accused of stealing $16.8 million worth of cryptocurrencies in a series of phishing attacks through 2017 and 2018.
“This tactic used a combination of phishing and spoofing to exploit internet user’s trust in known companies and organisations to fraudulently obtain their login credentials, including email addresses, password information, and other personal information,” said the DoJ.
Karasavidi laundered the income of the attacks into an account in his name. He managed the attack by hiding the nature and source of the funds by transferring them in a layered and sophisticated way through multiple accounts and numerous virtual currency blockchains. Finally, the stolen virtual currency and U.S. dollars were seized in a forfeiture action by the United States Secret Service.
In addition to the criminal charges, the U.S. Department of the Treasury also consented to both Russian hackers freezing all their assets under U.S. jurisdiction and banning them from doing any business with Americans.
“My warning to the public is that digital currency exchanges are not like banks. The security of digital currency exchanges is only as good as your own vigilance. While law enforcement will do everything within our power to protect you, you must also protect yourself,” said U.S. Attorney Anderson.
The two Iranian nationals Mehdi Farhadi and Hooman Heidarian are involved in government-linked hacking operations and have stolen hundreds of terabytes of confidential data from several targeted organisations.
The sensitive data includes communications about national security, foreign policy intelligence, non-military nuclear information, aerospace data, human rights activist information, victim financial information and personally identifiable information, and intellectual property, including unpublished scientific research.
Each of the defendants is charged with: one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers and access devices; unauthorised access to protected computers; unauthorised damage to protected computers; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; and access device fraud; and five counts of aggravated identity theft.
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