The Hunt for (Worlds) Russia’s Most Notorious Hacker

[Abarbarian]

Fancy a real ripping yarn,, read the article.

https://www.wired.com/2017/03/russian-hacker-spy-botnet

Slavik, it turned out, was a 30-year-old who lived an upper-middle-class existence in Anapa, a Russian resort city on the Black Sea. Online photos showed that he enjoyed boating with his wife. The couple had a young daughter. One photo showed Bogachev posing in leopard-print pajamas and dark sunglasses, holding a large cat. The investigative team realized that he had written the first draft of Zeus when he was just 22 years old.

But the uncomfortable truth is that Bogachev and other Russian cybercriminals lie pretty far beyond America’s reach. The huge questions that linger over the GameOver case—like those surrounding Bogachev’s precise relationship to Russian intelligence and the full tally of his thefts, which officials can only round to the nearest $100 million or so—foreshadow the challenges that face the analysts looking into the election hacks.

The criminal tactics that were so novel when Bogachev helped pioneer them have now grown commonplace. The spread of ransomware is accelerating. And today’s botnets—especially Mirai, a network of infected Internet of Things devices—are even more dangerous than Bogachev’s creations.

Interesting that with all the help and co-operation from worldwide police and intelligence agencies including GCHQ here in the UK, it took from 2009 to 2015 before the criminal organization was disrupted and taken down partially.
The main ring leader is still at large.