Pierluigi Paganini
July 02, 2015
Cybercrime represents one of the most serious threat to Governments and private industries worldwide, law enforcement hunt down this emerging class of criminals who are able to influence the social context like drug traffickers and terrorists.
The FBI has published the lists of most wanted cyber criminals and the rewards for their capture. According to FBI data these individuals are responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, for this reason, the Feds are willing to pay a combined $4.2 million for information leading to their arrest.
U.S. Retailer giants Target and Home Depot are just a couple of samples of companies that suffered major cyber attacks, we cannot avoid mentioning other illustrious victims of the cybercrime like the Sony Pictures and government agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management.
Recently Trustwave firm published a report related to 2014 incidents that revealed cyber criminal activities are paying with 1,425% return on investment.
Who are the most wanted hackers and which are the rewards for their arrest?
The top five most wanted hackers by the FBI:
1. Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev | Reward: $3 million
Bogachev is the mastermind of the dreaded ZeuS botnet, probably the most prolific banking Trojan that is used by criminal crews to steal bank account numbers, user credentials and other personal information. In February the Justice Department has announced a reward of up to $3 million for the capture of the GameOver ZeuS botnet master. The malicious botnet was used by “a tightly knit gang ofcybercriminals” who developed and used the Gameover ZeuS botnet to steal million online banking credentials from Microsoft Windows machines worldwide. Law enforcement sustains that the botnet infected more than 1 million machines worldwide stealing nearly $100 million. Despite law enforcement has dismantled the GameOver Zeus botnet, authorities are still searching for the kingpin.
“He’s probably our number 1 target,” said Special Agent Christopher Stangl, who heads the Computer Intrusion Section of the FBI’s Cyber Division.
2. Nicolae Popescu | Reward: $1 million
Popescu is another popular cyber criminal that implemented a “tried and true” method of deceiving online consumers. The man set up fake auctions for automobiles on popular sites, including Cars.com and AutoTrader in 2012. The FBI said that Popescu and his accomplices made $3 million off the auctions. Six members of its criminal organization were arrested in 2012, but Popescu is still on the loose likely in Romania.
3. Alexsey Belan | Reward: $100,000
Belan hacked three e-commerce sites in Nevada and California stealing consumer data in 2012 and 2013, the precious data are then offered for sale in the underground market.
“This information is extremely valuable in the underground market, and that market drives the bad guys that commit those crimes,” said Stangl.
4. Peteris Sahurovs | Reward: $50,000
Sahurovs sold ads serving malware to news Web sites posing as a fake hotel chain. It is responsible for a malvertising campaign which served a ransomware to extort $50 ransom to the victims. The malware used by Sahurovs basically flood with pop-ups the victim’s PC. Sahurovs made $2 million using this attack scheme. The ransom requested to the victims is very low respect the one requested by other threat actors (i.e. Cryptowall) to persuade victims to pay and not report the attack.
5. Shaileshkumar “Sam” Jain | Reward: $50,000
Jain is the unique American in the list, he made $100 million between 2006 and 2008 by selling bogus software, or “scareware.” In order to deceive the victims, he flooded their PCs with pop-up ads that notified their computers were infected with a malware.
(Security Affairs –hackers, FBI)
