Ukrainian police have arrested a man and accused him of hacking the accounts of an international hosting company and using its servers to mine crypto in an apparent case of cryptojacking.
Cyber police officers from Ukraine’s National Police said in a June 4 statement that a 35-year-old man from the Poltava region had allegedly been probing for weaknesses in the online security of various international companies and gaining access to their servers since at least 2018.
“In particular, the defendant illegally gained access to over 5,000 customer accounts of an international hosting company that provides server rental services for the operation of various websites and online platforms,” the police said.
After gaining access to the accounts, the man allegedly deployed unauthorized virtual machines and crypto miners using the company’s servers, which is commonly referred to as cryptojacking.
Ukrainian police claim the man’s siphoning of resources without paying caused the hosting company to suffer losses estimated at over 185 million Ukrainian hryvnias ($4.4 million).
Police also alleged the man periodically changed his place of residence within the Poltava, Odesa, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions to evade detection.
Police uncover crypto wallets and software
During a search of the accused cryptojackers’ residence, police said they recovered computer equipment, mobile phones, bank cards and other physical evidence, which showed he was active on hacker forums.
The seized equipment also allegedly contained authorization data of email accounts that were used for hacking, crypto wallets, software for configuring, launching and managing crypto mining operations and other software for collecting info and controlling equipment remotely.
The accused is facing charges of unauthorized interference in the operation of electronic information communication networks.
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If convicted, the charges can carry up to 15 years in prison and a ban on holding certain positions, such as those in IT and communications, or engaging in certain activities where the convicted person could access communication systems or networks for up to three years.
A pre-trial investigation is still ongoing, and additional charges could be leveled in the future, according to Ukraine’s National Police.
In a similar case, last April a US man was charged with wire fraud and money laundering after allegedly defrauding two cloud computing providers to run a large-scale illegal cryptojacking operation to mine $970,000 in crypto.
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