Russian 'Soldier' Steals $3.2 Million in Six Months
posted Sunday Sep 18, 2011 by Nicholas DiMeo
Ever wonder what the Russians are up to lately? News has come across my desk this week that sheds a little light on their improved craftiness. A Russian man in his twenties is suspected to be running a cyber crime ring, stealing millions of dollars with bank Trojans and other types of malware.
Trend Micro has reported that this man, named "Soldier," has been able to steal over $3.2 million in only six months, beginning somewhere in January of this year. Just to break it down, that's $17,000 a day!
How did this happen? We have the details after the break.
Soldier has been able to use SpyEye and ZeuS Trojans to steal online banking information by using exploits to install the software on the computers of his choosing. As it would turn out, a huge portion of the over 25,000 infected PCs are residing right here in the US, specifically, Hollywood. Among the infected are computers from different branches of the US Government and military, schools, research labs, airports and banks.
Investigators say that these machines aren't the prime target for this cyber crime group and that they were mainly gaining the information out of these computers to sell with other stolen login information like emails, social networking sites and others.
Trend Micro reports,
Compromise on such a mass scale is not that unusual for criminals using toolkits like SpyEye, but the amounts stolen and the number of large organizations potentially impacted is cause for serious concern.
We currently do not have any other names or charges to report, as Trend Micro is still heavily investigating this matter and informing the affected users. We will bring you any further updates as they develop.
