Oct. 25 (UPI) — A federal grand jury has charged a Ukrainian national with operating an international malware scheme that infected millions of computers worldwide.
The man, 26-year-old Mark Sokolovsky, is accused of renting out Raccoon Infostealer malware for about $200 a month to individuals who used it to steal information from computer uses, the Justice Department announced in a statement Tuesday.
Sokolovsky is currently behind bars in the Netherlands where he has resided since his arrest in March when Dutch, Italian and U.S. authorities dismantled the malware’s digital infrastructure, taking Raccoon Infostealer offline.
Federal prosecutors identified Sokolovsky as a key player in the scheme, which lasted from at least 2018 until March.
Those who rented the malware deployed it via email phishing to steal personal information from infected users, including email addresses, identification numbers and bank account and cryptocurrency information, authorities said.
According to the Justice Department, the FBI has identified more than 50 million forms of personal information, including more than 4 million email addresses, that were stolen, some of which were used to commit financial crimes or sold to others on cybercrime forums.
The FBI has yet to verify the exact number of victims, but says there are millions worldwide, and it has launched a website where email addresses can be checked to see if they are among those within the U.S. government’s repository of Raccoon Infostealer stolen data.
“As reflected in the number of potential victims and global breadth of this attack, cyberthreats do not respect borders, which makes international cooperation all the more critical,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. “I urge anyone who thinks they could be a victim to follow the FBI’s guidance on how to report your potential exposure.”
According to court documents, Sokolovsky was charged on Nov. 21 of last year. In late August, the United States formally requested Sokolovsky be extradited, with the Amsterdam District Court granting his removal on Sept. 13.
According to the indictment unsealed Tuesday, Sokolovsky has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and aggravated identify theft.
If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison for the wire fraud and money laundering offenses, five years for the computer fraud conspiracy charge and a mandatory consecutive two-year term for aggravated identity theft.
