Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Russian Who Helped Kelihos Malware Evade Detection Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison

A Russian national convicted earlier this year in the United States for his role in a cybercrime operation has been sentenced to four years in prison.

A Russian national convicted earlier this year in the United States for his role in a cybercrime operation has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Oleg Koshkin, 41, was given a 48-month prison sentence for one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse and one count of computer fraud and abuse. He has been in custody since 2019, when he was arrested in California.

Koshkin, who had been living in Estonia, operated online services designed to help malware evade detection by anti-malware products. His websites, Crypt4U.com and fud.bz, provided so-called crypting services that malware developers could use to encrypt their creations in order to increase their chances of remaining undetected.

While the services were used for various types of malware, the United States’ case against the man focused on how his services were used by the creator of the Kelihos botnet, which is said to have ensnared roughly 200,000 devices around the world.

Kelihos was at one point one of the biggest botnets, but it was taken down in 2017, when its creator, Russian national Peter Levashov, was arrested in Spain. Levashov pleaded guilty in 2018, after he was extradited to the United States, and he was sentenced to time served in July — he had spent 33 months in custody.

Pavel Tsurkan, who has been accused of helping Koshkin, pleaded guilty to hacking-related charges in June, but he has yet to be sentenced.

“Today’s sentencing of Oleg Koshkin serves as another example of the risk and consequences awaiting those who choose to commit cybercrimes against the American public,” said Special Agent in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI’s New Haven Division.

“For years, Koshkin and his co-conspirators worked to evade our most basic cyber defenses in order to spread malware on a truly global scale. While our work to bring Koshin to justice comes to a close, the FBI will continue to tirelessly defend our country from the ever-evolving cyber threats posed by criminals, terrorists and hostile nation-states,” Sundberg added.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Related: Russian Administrator of Bulletproof Hosting Sentenced to Prison in U.S.

Related: Member of Russian Gang That Hacked Tax Prep Firms Sentenced to Prison in U.S.

Related: Russian Sentenced to Prison in U.S. for Role in Cybercrime Scheme

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.