{"id":38022,"date":"2020-11-04T17:50:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T17:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13b5178b-21f1-4d84-bb86-ce10c7c0a206"},"modified":"2020-11-04T17:50:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T17:50:03","slug":"russian-authorities-make-rare-arrest-of-malware-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/russian-authorities-make-rare-arrest-of-malware-author\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian authorities make rare arrest of malware author"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hacker\"<\/span>
<\/span> Image: D-Keine \/ Getty Images <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Russian authorities have arrested a malware author at the end of September, an action that is extremely rare in a country known to usually be soft on hackers.<\/p>\n

According to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the suspect is a 20-year-old from the region of North Ossetia\u2013Alania.<\/p>\n

Russian authorities claim that between November 2017 and March 2018, the suspect created several malware strains, which he later used to infect more than 2,100 computers across Russia.<\/p>\n

Authorities said<\/a> that besides operating the malware himself, the suspect also worked with six other accomplices to distribute the malware, which eventually brought the group more than 4.3 million Russian rubles (~$55,000) in profit.<\/p>\n

While Russian law enforcement did not share the malware author’s name, Benoit Ancel, a malware analyst at the CSIS Security Group, said last week<\/a> and today<\/a> on Twitter that the suspect is a Russian hacker he and other security researchers have been tracking under the nickname of “1ms0rry<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

Ancel is in the perfect position to identify this malware developer. In April 2018, Ancel worked together with other security researchers to track down 1ms0rry’s online operations and malware arsenal.<\/p>\n

According to this report<\/a>, Ancel linked 1ms0rry to malware strains such as:<\/p>\n