Russian authorities make rare arrest of malware author

guest · Nov 4, 2020

Russian authorities make rare arrest of malware author
Malware dev made the grave error of deploying his malware inside Russia's borders
November 4, 2020
https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-authorities-make-rare-arrest-of-malware-author/

Russian authorities have arrested a malware author at the end of September, an action that is extremely rare in a country known to usually be soft on hackers.

According to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the suspect is a 20-year-old from the region of North Ossetia–Alania.
Russian authorities claim that between November 2017 and March 2018, the suspect created several malware strains, which he later used to infect more than 2,100 computers across Russia.

Authorities said that besides operating the malware himself, the suspect also worked with six other accomplices to distribute the malware, which eventually brought the group more than 4.3 million Russian rubles (~$55,000) in profit.
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While Russian law enforcement did not share the malware author's name, Benoit Ancel, a malware analyst at the CSIS Security Group, said last week and today on Twitter that the suspect is a Russian hacker he and other security researchers have been tracking under the nickname of "1ms0rry."

According to this report, Ancel linked 1ms0rry to malware strains such as:

1ms0rry-Miner: a trojan that, once installed on a system, starts secretly mining cryptocurrency to generate profit for its author.

N0f1l3: an info-stealer trojan that can extract and steal data from infected computers. Capabilities include the ability to steal browser passwords, cryptocurrency wallet configuration files, Filezilla FTP credentials, and specific files stored on a user's desktop.

LoaderBot: a trojan that can be used to infect victims in a first stage and then deploy other malware on-demand during a second stage (aka a "loader").

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However, the young programmer made a major mistake by allowing his malware to infect Russian users.
Today, all major Russian-speaking hacking forums and black market sites make it very clear in their rules that members are forbidden from attacking users in the former Soviet space, [...]
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