US accuses man of being 'elite' ransomware pioneer they've hunted for years

The US has charged a suspect they claim is a Belarusian-Ukrainian cybercriminal whose offenses date back to 2011. Maksim Silnikau, 38, was recently extradited to the US from Poland and was formally indicted in both New Jersey and Virginia for crimes relating to malvertising and ransomware respectively. Silnikau is accused of …

[stiine]

"In Newark, New Jersey, where this week Silnikau's charges were unsealed, he will be tried in connection to the long-running malvertising campaigns between 2023 and 2022."

Holy shit, he had a malvertising campaign that lasted for longer than time itself.

[Bebu]

'J.P. Morgan' practiced ‘extreme operational and online security’

Really rather ironic.

Sounds as though Silnikau was orders of magnitude better at security than contemporary practitioners but that would not be difficult.

Although I would be suspicious that the extreme operational and online security might be used by prosecutors to excuse that a lack of substantive evidence. Given the parlous state of the US (criminal) justice system they might as well lock him up for being suspiciously foreign.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 'J.P. Morgan' practiced ‘extreme operational and online security’

What exactly is meant by ‘extreme operational and online security’? The words "operational" and "security" don't even appear in the body of the article, just the tagline.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: 'J.P. Morgan' practiced ‘extreme operational and online security’

I was wondering that myself.

And I have to agree with GP too. I'll believe he had better-than-average OPSEC and INTSEC for one of this lot, but that bar is really low, as anyone who follows these investigations knows. If he had practiced what I'd consider reasonable security,¹ authorities never would have known his real name, much less managed to arrest him.

¹Of course I have low risk tolerance, which is one reason why I'm not a criminal. (There are others; for example, I don't like anoraks.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 'J.P. Morgan' practiced ‘extreme operational and online security’

Yeah, I always doubt it when people say "security could have been better"...at some point the law catches up with all these crims because of life, it's usually not down to poor security, it's usually because the crim fell out with someone or he has a missus that wants to go on holiday to a country that has regulations that question where funds came from etc which opens up a trail.

Top list of things that get crims caught.

1. Being too greedy. Your partner in crime asks for more and you tell him to fuck himself.

2. Your wife starts moaning about going to shitty or obscure countries on holiday like Egypt, Morocco, Northern Cyprus, Turkey, Lichtenstein, Bosnia, UAE, Belarus etc etc and not Florida, Paris, Rome, London, Venice, Barcelona, New York, LA, Caribbean etc etc...the fancier places.

3. Trying to hand over your empire instead of wrapping it up and riding into the sunset.

4. Sheer boredom and isolation.

5. Petty crime / debts, like unpaid parking fines, outstanding loans (that they thought they could ignore and outrun) that catch up and force a claims court situation etc etc.

[Clarecats]

Typo

malvertising scheme that ran for nearly a decade between October 2013 and March 2022.

the long-running malvertising campaigns between 2023 and 2022.

Spot the difference.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet Google get away with malvertising

With their shitting ads on YouTube regarding fake/misleading products. Reported one once, and they blamed it on AdSense, ignoring that they fucking own AdSense. Its the same with their policing of content. Say a naughty word and your video is in danger of disappearing, but all the "traveller" vids of them fighting are all left up, despite me reporting them several times.

Seems if you're a billion dollar company its OK, one person, then they'll hunt you down till they catch you or accidentally shoot you.