For the Russian hacker Evgeny Bogachev, the FBI has appointed an award of $ 3 million

Network technologies continue to evolve, with them improving methods of hacking and information theft. Thousands of people are engaged in the development of malicious software, but only a few reach such heights in this area as Yevgeny Bogachev. For the FBI, this is cybercriminal # 1 , a reward of $ 3 million has been awarded for his capture. This is the biggest reward that the FBI has ever been offered for issuing information about the whereabouts of the cybercriminator or the attacker himself.

The FBI accuses Bogachev, who lives in Russia, of infecting computers and computer networks of individuals and companies with malicious software. The goal is to steal from the bank accounts of victims of thousands or even millions of dollars. Bureau agents believe that for Bogachev there is no difference in who to rob - government organizations or national minorities. If there is money somewhere, Bogachev will come after them.

He is also accused of having influenced the course of presidential elections in the United States along with a group of other "colleagues". Against the alleged perpetrators, the previous president of this country, Barack Obama, imposed sanctions. Perhaps Evgeny himself did not participate in the hacking of the servers of the Democratic Party of the United States, according to law enforcement officers of this country. But in the process of hacking exploits created by him and other software tools were used.
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New York Times journalists claim that Bogachev has access to data stored on millions of PCs. These are home systems with photos from vacations, computers of various enterprises, with secret data stored on disks, servers of government organizations. Representatives of the said media say that they have almost no doubt that Bogachev infected computers that belong to various government organizations in different countries. The software tools developed by Bogachyov, according to NYT representatives, are an excellent opportunity for Russian special services to gain access to information from government and commercial computer systems of companies and organizations in other countries. The cooperation here, according to the Americans, is mutually beneficial: cybercriminal No. 1 receives money, and Russian special services receive classified information.

Information security experts at Fox-IT claim that the intelligence services of the Russian Federation are primarily interested in data on the situation in Ukraine and the war in Syria. But there are attempts to obtain classified information from government computers in the United States.

Bogachev, according to the FBI, became a large-scale figure in the world of cybercriminals more than a decade ago, when he and his “colleagues” developed the evil ZeuS. This software appeared in 2006 (according to some data - 2007). It is a sample of software designed to commit unlawful acts. First and foremost, the goal of Zeus is theft of user credentials that are used to conduct financial transactions. In 2012, analysts claimed that Zeus was responsible for 90% of fraudulent transactions in the world.

Zeus infects computers, making botnets of them. Moreover, Zeus is not one huge botnet, but several hundreds or even thousands of small and medium infected systems. The fact is that the creators of Zeus sell to anyone who has money and who is willing to spend it on the acquisition of such specialized software. This system consists of the builder and the administrative panel. The bot's executable code is created by the builder, containing the main module and the configuration file with the address of the control center, paths to scripts, and other important data that are required for the virus to work.

This system is perfectly protected from detection, which allowed Zeus operators to bypass the most advanced protection systems in banks, infecting all new computers and computer networks around the world. The FBI claims that at the time of its formation Zeus represented the most advanced of all cyber-systems of money theft, which could not be destroyed for several years.

Americans believe that in several years Bogachev had huge funds that he spent on the acquisition of real estate in different countries, expensive cars and much more. Allegedly, he even had three passports for different names, which gave the cybercriminal the opportunity to travel without any problems. At the peak of Zeus activity, Bogachev had between 500,000 and 1 million infected computers at his disposal.

It is also known about Bogachev that in his work he used the nicknames slavik, lucky12345, pollingsoon. By the way, it was slavik who was the operator of the first version of Zeus. Keith Mularski, an FBI official, claims that Bogachev behaves like a paranoid in his work, not trusting anyone.

In 2014, the United States, with the help of ten other states, conducted Operation Commodity, which allowed law enforcement to stop the spread of Zeus and clean thousands of computers from the malware. It was then, Moularsky claims, that Bogachev’s guilt was proven in committing a number of cybercrime, including stealing information and money by using the capabilities of malicious software.

But in Russia, Bogachev is not recognized as guilty. There is no agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States on the mutual extradition of criminals and Russia is not going to extradite Bogachev to the United States. Austin Berglas (Austin Berglas), one of the FBI employees who participated in the investigation into the case of the creators of Zeus, said that he was sure that Bogachev would cooperate with the Russian special services. This, he believes, enables the cybercriminal to remain in the country and successfully avoid punishment for many years. According to NYT journalists, the FBI firmly believe that Russian intelligence services use malicious software developed by cybercriminals in order to obtain secret information about organizations and companies in different countries. The interesting thing is that in the spyware storage, used by the CIA , were programs developed in Russia.


Evgeny Bogachev, for the capture of which the FBI announced a reward of $ 3 million

Requests to obtain information on the situation in the east of Ukraine, actions in Syria, conflicts in Georgia and Turkey, according to the FBI, began to flow to computers under the control of Bogachev, starting in 2011. American experts who studied this case claim that it is impossible to establish the authorship of requests. At the same time, they say that these actions are not related to the financial embezzlements that Bogachev specializes in, which means that requests were sent by outsiders who are not interested in money, but in information.

Unusual requests were received on infected computers in various regions. For example, weapons delivery systems in Turkey began to receive requests of the “weapons supply” type after the US authorities agreed to supply small quantities of weapons to Syrian rebels in 2013. Specific requests were sent to infected computers in other regions, for example, during the Ukrainian events in 2014. It is worth noting that American experts do not share how exactly they were able to find out about what requests were sent to infected computers in various countries.

The FBI believes that Russian intelligence services hire black-hacked hackers on various forums and websites dedicated to carding and other such things. One such resource is Carding World. There are strict rules on this and similar resources. One of them is not to work in Russia or the former USSR. According to the NYT , on the same Carding World for violating this rule, users get a life ban.

FBI representatives have repeatedly tried to establish cooperation with the FSB in terms of carrying out work to capture intruders who are engaged in financial fraud, carding and other things. But in fact, cooperation could be adjusted infrequently. The US Department of Justice even began to joke that Russian intelligence services would rather award a cybercriminal than issue it to the FBI. “Almost all the hackers that the US government indicted were immediately sought by the Russian government. And each time they were asked to provide logistic and technical assistance, ”New York lawyer Arkady Bukh told NYT, often representing the interests of Russian hackers who are being arrested in the United States. One day, according to representatives of the FBI, an attacker who was suspected of committing a number of cybercrime by the bureau sent a copy of his passport to a person who was considered to be a representative of the Russian special services by the FBI.

The most interesting thing is that Bogachev lived and lives, according to the FBI, not hiding. His permanent place of residence is Anapa. Here he has an apartment in a house on the coast. Another apartment he bought in Moscow. The cybercriminal also owns a large fleet of luxury cars and a yacht.

US law enforcement officers have received a large amount of information about Bogachev from other cybercriminals who have "fallen". One of them is Alexander Panin, who is serving a prison sentence in the prison of Kentucky, USA. This man told the FBI that Bogachev often complained about his exhaustion from work and the small amount of time he spent with his family (wife and two children).



On the real activities of Bogachev can only guess. Journalists in some media outlets, including USA Today, believe that he is not a lone genius of the underworld, but the head of a criminal clan that specializes in cybercrime, mainly stealing funds from victims ’accounts.

Together with Bogachev, a certain Aleksey Belan was included in the sanctions list signed by Obama, to whom the FBI accused of stealing databases of clients of various companies. For information on his whereabouts, the FBI is offering $ 100,000. The head of the General Staff Directorate, Igor Korobov, his first deputies, Igor Kostyukov, Vladimir Alekseev, and the deputy, Sergey Gizunov, were on the same list.