Golden Finance reported that according to Cointelegraph, Ukrainian police recently successfully arrested a man who was accused of hacking into the account of an international hosting company and using its servers for cryptocurrency mining. This is a typical case of “cryptojacking”.
In a statement released on June 4th, the cyber police of the National Police Service of Ukraine pointed out that the 35-year-old man was from the Poltava region. Since 2018, he has been constantly looking for cybersecurity vulnerabilities in several international companies in order to gain access to their servers. The police said, “The defendant illegally hacked into more than 5,000 customer accounts of an international hosting company, which mainly provides server rental services for operating various websites and online platforms.”
After obtaining access to these accounts, the man, without authorization, deployed virtual machines on the company’s servers and installed cryptocurrency mining programs. This behavior is widely known as “cryptojacking”. Ukrainian police said that the man occupied server resources without permission, causing the hosting company to suffer a loss of approximately 185 million Ukrainian hryvnias (about 4.4 million US dollars). The police also disclosed that the man had constantly changed his residence in areas such as Poltava, Odessa, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk to evade investigation.
During the search of the man’s residence, the police seized physical evidence such as computer equipment, mobile phones and bank cards, which indicated that he had been active on hacker forums. Among the seized devices, it is suspected to contain email account authorization data used for hacking attacks, encrypted wallets, software for configuring, starting and managing cryptocurrency mining operations, as well as software for remotely collecting information and controlling devices.
At present, the defendant is facing charges of unauthorized interference with the operation of electronic information and communication networks. If convicted, he may face up to 15 years in prison. Meanwhile, within the next three years, he will be prohibited from holding certain positions in the fields of information technology and communication, nor from engaging in any activities that may come into contact with communication systems or networks. According to the National Police of Ukraine, the pre-trial investigation is still ongoing and more charges may be added in the future.
Cryptohijacking, as a common criminal act in the field of cryptocurrencies, has become increasingly rampant in recent years. With the development of the cryptocurrency market, the cost of computing power required for mining has been constantly rising, and some lawbreakers have thus turned their attention to illegally obtaining others’ computing resources. The successful arrest of the suspects by the Ukrainian police this time not only saved the victims from certain losses but also served as a wake-up call for potential criminals. The progress of the investigation of subsequent cases and the results of relevant legal penalties will have a profound impact on the security environment of the cryptocurrency industry and deserve close attention both within and outside the industry.
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