US Convicts Two Romanians Of Cryptojacking

| Publish date: 04/14/2019
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A federal jury has reached a decision that would convict two Romanians. These cybercriminals, according to the official report, are believed to be the individuals behind the spreading of malware in an attempt to steal credit card credentials. Even more so, their activities are said to be involved in illicitly mining digital currencies.

Cryptojacking and Other Cyber Crimes

The decision was made official by the U.S. Department of Justice on its website. The malware, in particular, was used and spread by the suspects for cryptojacking and stealing of credit card. Apparently, other user information was obtained and sold by the individuals on darknet markets. The same array of information was also used by them in order to engage in various online auction frauds.

The conviction cybercriminals from Romania are named Bogdan Nicolescu (36 years old) and Radu Miclaus (37 years old). The decision was reached by the federal jury after performing a 12-day trial.

The suspects were charged with wire fraud and a scheme to traffic fake service marks. In addition to these charges, the government agency decided to include the violation of committing money laundering and aggravated identify theft, with about 12 counts each of wire fraud.

The aforementioned cybercriminals are slated for sentencing on August 14 in the Northern District of Ohio. The activity was said to be performed from Bucharest, Romania and was dubbed a “criminal conspiracy.” Interestingly, apart from the two suspects, another person is also involved in the act and pleaded guilty to the charges.

The Malware Explained

The malware itself is not entirely new, as it was reportedly developed back in 2007. Eventually, it found itself in emails disguised as authentic communications coming from companies and other entities like Norton AntiVirus, Western Union, and the Internal Revenue Service.

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According to the press release from the U.S Department of Justice, recipients who decided to click on the attached file on their emails had enabled the malware to be installed directly on their devices. The malware is also responsible for obtaining a deluge of email addresses directly from the contact lists of the victims. The infected computers, on the other hand, reached a number of more than 100,000 AOL email accounts. All of these were believed to have played a crucial role in spreading the malware further, allowing millions of emails to be sent immediately to different stolen addresses.

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