The Zaporizhzhia Cyber Police has exposed a 35-year-old resident of Poltava who for several years hacked into the accounts of clients of an international hosting company and used their servers for cryptocurrency mining. Without the owners' knowledge, the attacker illegally exploited their resources for a total amount of over 4.5 million US dollars, which is approximately 185 million hryvnias.
According to the investigation, the hacker had been operating since 2018, changing his place of residence in different regions of Ukraine — in particular, in Poltava, Odessa, Zaporizhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. He created virtual machines on hacked accounts and ran mining scripts on them, making a profit in cryptocurrency.
During the searches conducted by cyber police officers together with investigators from the district police department, the following was seized:
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data to access hacked accounts;
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crypto wallets;
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mining software;
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specialized scripts and techniques;
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hacking tools.
It was also found that the attacker was active on darknet forums, where he exchanged knowledge and collected information about vulnerabilities in the IT systems of companies around the world.
Criminal proceedings have been opened under Part 5 of Article 361 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - unauthorized interference with the operation of electronic computers, which caused serious consequences. The suspect faces up to 15 years in prison.
The pre-trial investigation is ongoing, and law enforcement officers do not rule out additional qualifications for the defendant's actions.
