Ukraine Arrests Cybercrime Group for Selling Data of 30 Million People

Ukrainian law enforcement authorities on Friday disclosed that
it had “neutralized” a hacking group operating from the city of
Lviv that it said acted on behalf of Russian interests.

The group specialized in the sales of 30 million accounts
belonging to citizens from Ukraine and the European Union on the
dark web and netted a profit of $372,000 (14 million UAH) through
electronic payment systems like YooMoney, Qiwi, and WebMoney that
are outlawed in the country.

“Their ‘wholesale clients’ were pro-kremlin propagandists,” the
Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said^[1]
in a press release. “It was them who used the received
identification data of Ukrainian and foreign citizens to spread
fake ‘news’ from the front and sow panic.”

The goal behind the campaign was “large-scale destabilization in
multiple countries,” it stated, adding the hacked accounts were
used to propagate false information about the socio-political
situation in Ukraine and the E.U.

Searches carried out at the suspects’ homes revealed magnetic
disks containing personal data as well as computer equipment,
mobile phones, SIM cards, and flash drives that exhibited evidence
of illicit activities.

The development comes weeks after the agency moved to shut down
two bot farms comprising nearly 7,000 accounts that were
orchestrated to spread information designed to destabilize the
social and political situation in Ukraine.

“Their main activity was creation and promotion of accounts in
social networks and messengers,” it noted^[2]. “The group used the
bots to spread panic in the region, for example, by disseminating
disinformation and fake news from the front.”