Ukrainian Man Arrested by Cyber Police for Cryptojacking his Own Websites; to be Imprisoned for 6 Years

The Ukrainian cyber police say that they have arrested an unnamed person who infected numerous of his websites with malware such as ‘Wannacry.’ He infected his own websites by putting crypto mining malware scripts into it; local law enforcement of Ukraine reported the matter on March 26.

An unnamed 32-year-old man has been caught by the cyber-crime unit of the Ukraine national police from the region of Bukovina who, apparently, put cryptojacking software over a number of educational websites which were developed and administered by him.

The unidentified websites and the internet resources were visited by around 1.5 million users every month, the cyber-crime police mentioned.

The police further stated that upon installing the crypto mining malware scripts on the websites, it was extending towards visitors devices like CPU and GPU power to unlawfully mine cryptocurrencies. The cyber-crime police investigation reveals that the act of infecting was intentionally done by the unnamed man.

Regarding the case, the Google translation reads as,

“During the search operation in the apartment of an intruder, law enforcement officers detached the computer hardware of the attacker, removed bank cards, draft records other information carriers. All the data is taken over and send for examination.”

Also a native Russian speaker, Oleg Onishchuk who describes what it actually reads like,

“While carrying out the searches in the apartment of the violator, representative of law enforcement agencies removed computer equipment of the offender, Bank cards, drafts and additional media information. All the data withdrawn has been sent for examination.”

The unreliable Google translation gives a clear view of the matter and has helped cyber police to carry out the investigation. Ukraine cyber-police were interrogating the 32-year unnamed person separately and seized all the computer devices of the person as a part of the investigation process. When he was caught, the cyber-police detected that the person had placed cryptojacking software into his own websites, crypto mining malware scripts like Wannacry were injected into his websites so as to earn profit through the illegal way.

The cyber police have raided the cyber-criminal house and have taken all his computer devices and notes for launched criminal proceedings. The report mentions that he might face imprisonment for a period of 6 years.

Cryptojacking malware and ransomware activities have increased rapidly, the cybersecurity firm McAfee Labs revealed in the month of December, that the overall occurrences of cryptojacking malware grew by more than 4,000 percent in the year 2018.

The cyber-crime police told that the man operated several informational websites; he used to infect the visitors with Wannacry malware or used to use a different form of cryptojacking software to infect. According to the anti-hacking law of Ukraine, he will be sent to jail for up to 6 years.

Ukraine has been the main target of several ransomware campaigns in past, some outlets mentions.

The police did not provide much detailed information about the investigation. They have not mentioned how much the criminal hacker has earned through this act or how many systems he has managed to infect.

Roxanne Williams

Roxanne Williams has recently joined as a market reporter for CryptoNewsZ - the 24/7 crypto news site, where she produces recent stories, technical analysis and price updates on world's leading cryptocurrencies.

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