Looking to make a little quick cash? You could buy lottery tickets, but you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning the big one. Keep telling yourself that someone has to win. In modern society, the quick payout isn\u2019t necessarily a real thing. Sure, it happens, but it usually requires a ton of luck or a willingness to do something illegal. No, in today\u2019s society, knowledge is worth something, and it can be exchanged for money if you have the correct knowledge. Case in point: if you have some specific information, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is willing to pay for it.<\/p>\n

You may be familiarwith the GameOver Zeus<\/a> botnet. It\u2019s been aware of us for a while \u2013 as early as 2011. According to CNET<\/a>, \u201cGameOver Zeus, which first emerged in 2011, is an offshoot of the original data-stealing Zeus Trojan that began appearing in 2007, the [United States] Justice department said. However, its peer-to-peer structure differs from earlier variants of Zeus, which infected more than 13 million computers worldwide and led to losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.\u201d Before it was taken down<\/a> in June, 2014 in a joint operation by the FBI, Europol, and the National Crime Agency of the UK (dubbed \u2018Operation Tovar\u2019<\/a>), GameOver Zeus infected somewhere between 500,000 and one million computers, and successfully stole well in excess of US $100 million from unsuspecting victims.<\/p>\n

The botnet was used to steal banking credentials and \u201cwas disrupted by a multinational law enforcement investigation that seized servers central to the administration of highly sophisticated malware called Cryptolocker, which encrypted victims’ computer files and was then used to demand a ransom of hundreds of dollars in exchange for the encryption key to unlock the files.\u201d In addition to targeted attacks, the GameOver Zeus campaign used traditional phishing methods to target its victims. \u201cOften downloaded onto unprotected computers from malicious websites created by cybercriminals, the malware can also be spread via phishing scams that entice users to click on a link or attachment that installs the malware on victims’ computers. A keylogger then records victims’ account numbers and log-ins, which are then transmitted to the botnet’s servers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the June indictment that accompanied the botnet\u2019s takedown, the US Justice Department charged Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, a Russian nationalist in absentia, with 14 counts, including conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. Believed to be living in Anapa, Russia, Mr. Bogachev probably didn\u2019t worry too much about the indictments, because there\u2019s no formal extradition treaty between the United States and Russia.<\/p>\n

He might want to start worrying now, however, because the US government has just upped the ante. Last week, CNET reported<\/a> that the FBI has offered a US $3 million reward for Mr. Bogachev, and that number is a record figure. The FBI\u2019s website list, among others, Mr. Bogachev\u2019s crimes as including Conspiracy to Participate in Racketeering, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Conspiracy to Violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> by the US Department of Justice, the US government states that Bogachev, \u201cAlso known online as \u201clucky12345\u201d and \u201cslavik,\u201d\u2026allegedly acted as an administrator in a scheme that installed malicious software on more than one million computers without authorization. \u201c Bogachev, the statement says, \u201cis believed to be at large in Russia. This reward offer reaffirms the commitment of the U.S. government to bring those who participate in organized crime to justice, whether they hide online or overseas.\u201d In addition to the charges levied against Bogachev, he remains on the FBI\u2019s Cyber\u2019s Most Wanted<\/a> list, a who\u2019s who of the people that give us fits and disrupt our sleep patterns.<\/p>\n

Known as the U.S. Department of State\u2019s Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) Rewards Program, the funding of rewards was established in 2013 by US Congress \u201cto assist efforts to disrupt and dismantle transnational organized crime.\u201d The record bounty comes at a time of \u201cincreased efforts by the US government to stem the rise in cyberattacks, which the NSA estimates results in the loss each year of between $100 billion and $400 billion worth of intellectual property, according to Threat Post<\/a>,\u201d writes CNET.<\/p>\n

This is great news to those of us who rely on cyber security in our day-to-day lives. Russia, and other parts of the world have in many ways been untouchable, making them safe havens for criminals who wished to carry out their crimes with impunity. While it may not bear fruit for Bogachev, this reward symbolizes a tangible way of getting these crooks off the streets and safely behind bars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking to make a little quick cash? You could buy lottery tickets, but you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[11,9,10,8,7],"class_list":["post-954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","category-spam","tag-allspammedup","tag-bot","tag-botnet","tag-malware","tag-spam","jsn-master"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hidefideas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}