Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Two Romanians Arrested for Running Malware Encryption Services

Two Romanians suspected of running services for encrypting malware and testing it against antivirus engines were arrested last week.

Allegedly the operators of the CyberSeal and Dataprotector crypting services, as well as of the Cyberscan service, the duo is said to have provided aid to more than 1,560 criminals.

Two Romanians suspected of running services for encrypting malware and testing it against antivirus engines were arrested last week.

Allegedly the operators of the CyberSeal and Dataprotector crypting services, as well as of the Cyberscan service, the duo is said to have provided aid to more than 1,560 criminals.

The services, Europol says, were used for crypting a variety of malware types, including information stealers, Remote Access Trojans (RATs), and ransomware families.

The illegal services were being offered on underground portals, at prices ranging between $40 and $300, depending on license conditions. The two provided constant updates and support to their customers.

Prices for the counter antivirus service, which helped cybercriminals test the detection rates for their malware samples until they could ensure the malware was fully undetectable (FUD), ranged from $7 to $40.

Four houses were searched in Bucharest and Craiova as part of an operation conducted by Romanian police in cooperation with the FBI, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos), and Europol.

In addition to arresting the two, law enforcement took down backend infrastructure in Romania, Norway and the United States to disrupt the criminal services.

Related: Chinese Researcher Arrested for Destroying Evidence of Data Transfer to China

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Related: Russian Arrested for Recruiting Employee of U.S. Company to Plant Malware

Related: John McAfee Arrested, Charged With Tax Evasion

Related: Six Arrested in UK Over Malta Bank Cyber-Heist

Written By

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

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.