Tag Archives: Spamit

Jailed ChronoPay Co-Founder Denied Bail

November 1, 2011

A Moscow court on Monday denied bail for Pavel Vrublevsky, a Russian businessman who was charged earlier this year with hiring hackers to launch costly online attacks against his rivals. The denial came even after Vrublevsky apparently admitted his role… Read More »

Pharma Wars: Paying for Prosecution

September 12, 2011

In June 2011, Russian authorities arrested Pavel Vrublevsky, co-founder of ChronoPay, Russia’s largest processor of online payments, for allegedly hiring a hacker to attack his company’s rivals. New evidence suggests that Vrublevsky’s arrest was the product of a bribe paid… Read More »

Pharma Wars: Purchasing Protection

August 30, 2011

Leaked online chats between the co-owners of the world’s largest pharmacy spam operation reveal the extent to which illicit organizations in Russia purchase political protection, and bribe public officials into initiating or stalling law enforcement investigations.

Pharma Wars, Part II

August 19, 2011

Earlier this year, Russian police arrested Dmitry Stupin, a man known in hacker circles as “SaintD.” Stupin was long rumored to be the right-hand man of Igor Gusev, the alleged proprietor of GlavMed and SpamIt, two shadowy sister organizations that until this time last year were the largest sources of spam touting rogue Internet pharmacies.

According to several sources who are familiar with the matter, Russian police pulled Stupin off of a plane before it left Moscow. The police also reportedly took Stupin’s MacBook and copied its contents. The police detained Stupin as part of an investigation into Gusev launched nearly a year ago. Gusev fled his native Moscow last year and has not returned.

Sometime in the past few days, more than four years’ worth of chat conversations — apparently between Stupin, Gusev and dozens of other GlavMed employees — were leaked. Those conversations offer a fascinating glimpse into the day-to-day operations one of the world’s largest organization cyber criminal organizations.

Spam & Fake AV: Like Ham & Eggs

July 26, 2011

An explosion of online fraud tools and services online makes it easier than ever for novices to get started in computer crime. At the same time, a growing body of evidence suggests that much of the world’s cybercrime activity may be the work of a core group of miscreants who’ve been at it for many years.

I recently highlighted the financial links among the organizations responsible for promoting fake antivirus products and spam-advertised pharmacies; all were relying on a few banks in Azerbaijan to process credit card payments.

Microsoft Hunting Rustock Controllers

March 28, 2011

Who controlled the Rustock botnet? The question remains unanswered: Microsoft’s recent takedown of the world’s largest spam engine offered tantalizing new clues to the identity and earnings of the Rustock botmasters. The data shows that Rustock’s curators made millions by pimping rogue Internet pharmacies, but also highlights the challenges that investigators still face in tracking down those responsible for building and profiting from this complex crime machine.

Pharma Wars

February 25, 2011

It’s difficult to chronicle a battle in which neither side wants to admit publicly that he is fighting for his life, or indeed that he has even launched attacks against his enemy. But such is the nature of a business-feud-turned-turf-war that is now playing out slowly between bosses of two of the Internet’s largest illicit pharmacy operations.

FBI Identifies Russian ‘Mega-D’ Spam Kingpin

December 1, 2010

FBI investigators have identified a 23-year-old Russian man as the mastermind behind the notorious “Mega-D” botnet, a network of spam-spewing PCs that once accounted for roughly a third of all spam sent worldwide.

According to public court documents related to an ongoing investigation, a grand jury probe has fingered Moscow resident Oleg Nikolaenko as the author and operator of the Mega-D botnet.