Ukrainian Hacker Gets Arrested For Hacking 5,000 Accounts For Cryptojacking

Ukrainian authorities recently took a hacker who allegedly breached more than 5,000 accounts of a global hosting company into custody. Accordign to the Cyber Police of Ukraine, the suspect ran a cryptojacking scheme, compromising servers to run mining software over a course of seven year.

In that time, the Ukrainian hacker had successfully netted himself approximately US$4.5 million (~RM19 million) over that time period, having started looking and exploiting weaknesses in the network infrastructure of multiple companies.

To give you a brief breakdown of crpytojacking, the method is a form of cryptomining. However, instead of assembling a mining rig filled with multiple graphics cards, people with the necessary know-how can hack into the systems of unsuspecting victims, and turn them into virtual mining machines.

Ukrainian authorities say they seized computers, mobile phones, bank cards, and much more, all as evidence to tie the hacks to the suspect. Further investigation also revealed that the hacker had a list of compromised email login details, cryptowallets filled with coins mined from hacked accounts.

Ukrainian officials says that the investigation is still ongoing and there is a possibility that the hacker could have additional charges brought against him. As it stands, he faces up to 15 years in prison, if he is found guilty. Cryptotmining is obviously still a lucrative gig, even despite its shift from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, and this incident proves that.

It’s not just cryptojacking either; cryptomining is also a very power-hungry affair, literally. In Kuwait, the government has been cracking down on miners, after declaring the act as “illegal and unlicensed” actvitiy.

(Source: Tom’s Hardware)