A US court has sentenced a 40-year-old Russian man to five years and four months in prison for his involvement in the Trickbot gang, which distributed ransomware and stole money and sensitive information from businesses all over the world.
A key member of the Trickbot cybercrime gang, known for its sophisticated data-stealing Trojan that defrauded innocent internet users in the United States, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, and other countries, Vladimir Dunaev was from Amur Oblast in Russia’s far east.
Trickbot is thought to have infected millions of PCs worldwide, stealing dates of birth, payment card information, social security numbers, banking passwords, and information from people, financial institutions, hospitals, school administrators, or government agencies. Trickbot has also been employed in recent years to disseminate ransomware.
Duanev was merely one Trickbot gang member who contributed to the creation of the malware. His work included creating Chrome and Firefox browser modifications for malware, creating tools to help steal credentials and data from infected PCs, and hiding Trickbot from security software detection.
The Russian’s abilities were also used to manage malware-deploying servers, recruit additional coders into the criminal gang, and launder stolen money.
Court records indicate that between October 2018 and February 2021, the Trickbot gang is suspected of defrauding victims of more than US$ 3.4 million.
After being detained at a South Korean airport where he had become stranded during the Covid-19 pandemic, Duanaev, who went by the hacker handle” FFX,” was extradited to the US in 2021.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said that this sentencing” shows the department its ability to put cybercriminals behind bars, no matter where they are located.” ” We will continue to bring cybercriminals to justice in collaboration with our partners around the world.”
One of Dunaev’s co-conspirators admitted guilt to her part in the plot in June 2023 and received a two-year, eight-month prison term. Similar to Duanev, 55-year-old Alla” Max” Witte, a Latvian mother of two based in Miami, was also creating code for the TrickBot malware gang.
Dunaev, Witte, and an additional five people were charged in the original indictment with their alleged contributions to the creation, use, administration, profiting from Trickbot.
Many of the Trickbot group’s members are thought to have moved on to other cybercriminal endeavors with sad inevitability. That does not imply that law enforcement is passively watching and doing nothing. The United States and the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on seven Russian men last year in an effort to obstruct their operations. Some of these men are thought to have previously been involved in Trickbot.