A Russian national is facing US charges over a malware scheme that used fake freelance accounts to deliver malicious Excel files to tens of thousands of recipients.
Searzhudin Tamirlanovich Aktulaev faces charges of conspiracy, transmission of a program, information, code, and command to cause damage to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft, among other offenses, according to the Justice Department.
The operation allegedly involved creating roughly 255 fake accounts on a freelance employment platform to send emails containing Excel attachments that prompted recipients to enable macros. The macros downloaded either TeamViewer Remote Access Trojan (TVRAT), also known as TeamSpy, or DarkVNC malware that gave operators remote control of infected machines and allowed stolen data to be sent to command-and-control servers.
“According to the indictment filed June 1, 2021, and unsealed yesterday, Aktulaev, 40 years old, and a national of the Russian Federation, conspired to exploit the online message platform of a well-known freelance employment technology company, located in the Northern District of California, to spread malware to approximately 80,000 of their freelance users between at least June 2016 through November 2017.”
A shared document recovered from the scheme’s email account contained e-commerce credentials and personal information belonging to hundreds of victims.
Aktulaev is currently in federal custody following his extradition from Cyprus. He is slated to appear in a district court on October 5th for a status conference before US District Judge Donato.
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The post Russian National Extradited Over Malware Campaign Targeting 80,000 Users appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
