On Dec. 18, 2013, KrebsOnSecurity broke the information that U.S. retail large Target was battling a wide-ranging laptop intrusion that compromised greater than 40 million buyer cost playing cards over the earlier month. The malware used within the Target breach included the textual content string “Rescator,” which additionally was the deal with chosen by the cybercriminal who was promoting the entire playing cards stolen from Target prospects. Ten years later, KrebsOnSecurity has uncovered new clues in regards to the real-life id of Rescator.
Rescator, promoting a brand new batch of playing cards stolen in a 2014 breach at P.F. Chang’s.
Shortly after breaking the Target story, KrebsOnSecurity reported that Rescator seemed to be a hacker from Ukraine. Efforts to substantiate my reporting with that particular person ended after they declined to reply questions, and after I declined to simply accept a bribe of $10,000 to not run my story.
That reporting was primarily based on clues from an early Russian cybercrime discussion board by which a hacker named Rescator — utilizing the identical profile picture that Rescator was identified to make use of on different boards — claimed to have initially been generally known as “Helkern,” the nickname chosen by the administrator of a cybercrime discussion board referred to as Darklife.
KrebsOnSecurity started revisiting the analysis into Rescator’s real-life id in 2018, after the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment that named a special Ukrainian man as Helkern.
It could also be useful to first recap why Rescator is regarded as so carefully tied to the Target breach. For starters, the textual content string “Rescator” was present in among the malware used within the Target breach. Investigators would later decide that a variant of the malware used within the Target breach was utilized in 2014 to steal 56 million cost playing cards from Home Depot prospects. And as soon as once more, playing cards stolen within the Home Depot breach had been bought solely at Rescator’s outlets.
On Nov. 25, 2013, two days earlier than Target mentioned the breach formally started, Rescator might be seen in instantaneous messages hiring one other discussion board member to confirm 400,000 cost playing cards that Rescator claimed had been freshly stolen.
By the primary week of December 2013, Rescator’s on-line retailer — rescator[.]la — was promoting greater than six million cost card data stolen from Target prospects. Prior to the Target breach, Rescator had largely bought a lot smaller batches of stolen card and id knowledge, and the web site allowed cybercriminals to automate the sending of fraudulent wire transfers to cash mules primarily based in Lviv, Ukraine.
Finally, there’s some honor amongst thieves, and within the market for stolen cost card knowledge it’s thought-about poor type to promote a batch of playing cards as “yours” in case you are merely reselling playing cards bought to you by a third-party card vendor or thief. When critical stolen cost card store distributors want to talk {that a} batch of playing cards is uniquely their handiwork or that of their speedy crew, they discuss with it as “our base.” And Rescator was fairly clear in his ads that these thousands and thousands of playing cards had been obtained firsthand.
FLASHBACK
The new clues about Rescator’s id got here into focus once I revisited the reporting round an April 2013 story right here that recognized the creator of the OSX Flashback Trojan, an early Mac malware pressure that rapidly unfold to greater than 650,000 Mac computer systems worldwide in 2012.
That story in regards to the Flashback creator was attainable as a result of a supply had obtained a Web browser authentication cookie for a founding member of a Russian cybercrime discussion board referred to as BlackSEO. Anyone in possession of that cookie might then browse the invite-only BlackSEO discussion board and browse the person’s non-public messages with out having to log in.
BlackSEO.com VIP member “Mavook” tells discussion board admin Ika in a non-public message that he’s the Flashback creator.
The respectable proprietor of that BlackSEO person cookie glided by the nickname Ika, and Ika’s non-public messages on the discussion board confirmed he was shut mates with the Flashback creator. At the time, Ika additionally was the administrator of Pustota[.]pw — a closely-guarded Russian discussion board that counted amongst its members among the world’s most profitable and established spammers and malware writers.
For a few years, Ika held a key place at one among Russia’s largest Internet service suppliers, and his (largely glowing) popularity as a dependable supplier of hosting to the Russian cybercrime neighborhood gave him an encyclopedic data about almost each main participant in that scene on the time.
The story on the Flashback creator featured redacted screenshots that had been taken from Ika’s BlackSEO account (see picture above). The day after that story ran, Ika posted a farewell handle to his mates, expressing shock and bewilderment over the obvious compromise of his BlackSEO account.
In a prolonged publish on April 4, 2013 titled “I DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING,” Ika advised Pustota discussion board members he was so spooked by latest occasions that he was closing the discussion board and quitting the cybercrime enterprise solely. Ika recounted how the Flashback story had come the identical week that rival cybercriminals tried to “dox” him (their dox named the fallacious particular person, however included a few of Ika’s extra guarded identities).
“It’s no secret that karma farted in my direction,” Ika mentioned firstly of his publish. Unbeknownst to Ika on the time, his Pustota discussion board additionally had been utterly hacked that week, and a duplicate of its database shared with this creator.
A Google translated model of the farewell publish from Ika, the administrator of Pustota, a Russian language cybercrime discussion board centered on botnets and spam. Click to enlarge.
Ika mentioned the 2 people who tried to dox him did so on an much more guarded Russian language discussion board — DirectConnection[.]ws, maybe probably the most unique Russian cybercrime neighborhood ever created. New candidates of this discussion board needed to pay a non-refundable deposit, and obtain vouches by three established cybercriminals already on the discussion board. Even if one managed to steal (or guess) a person’s DirectConnection password, the login web page couldn’t be reached except the customer additionally possessed a particular browser certificates that the discussion board administrator gave solely to accredited members.
In no unsure phrases, Ika declared that Rescator glided by the nickname MikeMike on DirectConnection:
“I did not want to bring any of this to real life. Especially since I knew the patron of the clowns – specifically Pavel Vrublevsky. Yes, I do state with confidence that the man with the nickname Rescator a.k.a. MikeMike with his partner Pipol have been Pavel Vrublevsky’s puppets for a long time.”
Pavel Vrublevsky is a convicted cybercriminal who turned well-known because the CEO of the Russian e-payments firm ChronoPay, which specialised in facilitating on-line funds for a wide range of “high-risk” companies, together with playing, pirated Mp3 recordsdata, rogue antivirus software program and “male enhancement” drugs.
As detailed in my 2014 ebook Spam Nation, Vrublevsky not-so-secretly ran a pharmacy affiliate spam program referred to as Rx-Promotion, which paid spammers and virus writers to blast out tens of billions of junk emails promoting generic Viagra and managed prescribed drugs like ache reduction medicines. Much of my reporting on Vrublevsky’s cybercrime empire got here from a number of years price of inside ChronoPay emails and paperwork that had been leaked on-line in 2010 and 2011.
Pavel Vrublevsky’s former Facebook profile photograph.
ZAXVATMIRA
In 2014, KrebsOnSecurity realized from a trusted supply near the Target breach investigation that the person MikeMike on DirectConnection — the identical account that Ika mentioned belonged to Rescator — used the e-mail handle “zaxvatmira@gmail.com.”
At the time, KrebsOnSecurity couldn’t join that e mail handle to something or anybody. However, a latest search on zaxvatmira@gmail.com on the breach monitoring service Constella Intelligence returns only one outcome: An account created in November 2010 on the website searchengines[.]ru underneath the deal with “r-fac1.”
A search on “r-fac1” at cyber intelligence agency Intel 471 revealed that this person’s introductory publish on searchengines[.]ru marketed musictransferonline[.]com, an associates program that paid folks to drive site visitors to websites that bought pirated music recordsdata for pennies apiece.
According to leaked ChronoPay emails from 2010, this area was registered and paid for by ChronoPay. Those missives additionally present that in August 2010 Vrublevsky licensed a cost of ~$1,200 for a multi-user license of an Intranet service referred to as MegaPlan.
ChronoPay used the MegaPlan service to assist handle the sprawling tasks that Vrublevsky referred to internally as their “black” cost processing operations, together with pirated drugs, porn, Mp3s, and faux antivirus merchandise. ChronoPay workers used their MegaPlan accounts to trace cost disputes, order volumes, and promoting partnerships for these high-risk packages.
Borrowing a web page from the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs, the workers adopted nicknames like “Mr. Kink,” “Mr. Heppner,” and “Ms. Nati.” However, in a basic failure of operational safety, many of those workers had their MegaPlan account messages robotically forwarded to their actual ChronoPay e mail accounts.
A display shot of the org chart from ChronoPay’s MegaPlan Intranet system.
When ChronoPay’s inside emails had been leaked in 2010, the username and password for its MegaPlan subscription had been nonetheless working and legitimate. An inside person listing for that subscription included the private (non-ChronoPay) e mail handle tied to every worker Megaplan nickname. That listing itemizing mentioned the e-mail handle zaxvatmira@gmail.com was assigned to the pinnacle of the Media/Mp3 division for ChronoPay, pictured on the prime left of the organizational chart above as “Babushka Vani and Koli.”
[Author’s note: I initially overlooked the presence of the email address zaxvatmira@gmail.com in my notes because it did not show up in text searches of my saved emails, files or messages. I rediscovered it recently when a text search for zaxvatmira@gmail.com on my Mac found the address in a screenshot of the ChronoPay MegaPlan interface.]
The nickname two rungs down from “Babushka” within the ChronoPay org chart is “Lev Tolstoy,” which the MegaPlan service confirmed was picked by somebody who used the e-mail handle v.zhabukin@freefrog-co-ru.
ChronoPay’s emails present that this Freefrog e mail handle belongs to a Vasily Borisovich Zhabykin from Moscow. The Russian enterprise monitoring web site rusprofile[.]ru reviews that Zhabykin is or was the supervisor or proprietor of three Russian organizations, together with one referred to as JSC Hot Spot.
[Author’s note: The word “babushka” means “grandma” in Russian, and it could be that this nickname is a nod to the ChronoPay CEO’s wife, Vera. The leaked ChronoPay emails show that Vera Vrublevsky managed a group of hackers working with their media division, and was at least nominally in charge of MP3 projects for ChronoPay. Indeed, in messages exposed by the leaked ChronoPay email cache, Zhabykin stated that he was “directly subordinate” to Mrs. Vrublevsky].
CYBERCRIME HOTSPOT
JSC Hot Spot is attention-grabbing as a result of its co-founder is one other ChronoPay worker: 37-year-old Mikhail “Mike” Shefel. A Facebook profile for Mr. Shefel says he’s or was vice chairman of cost methods at ChronoPay. However, the final replace on that profile is from 2018, when Shefel seems to have legally modified his final title.
Archive.org reveals that Hot Spot’s web site — myhotspot[.]ru — bought a wide range of consulting companies, together with IT safety assessments, code and system audits, and e mail advertising. The earliest recorded archive of the Hot Spot web site listed three shoppers on its homepage, together with ChronoPay and Freefrog.
ChronoPay inside emails present that Freefrog was one among its funding tasks that facilitated the sale of pirated Mp3 recordsdata. Rusprofile[.]ru reviews that Freefrog’s official firm title — JSC Freefrog — is included by a thinly-documented entity primarily based within the Seychelles referred to as Impex Consulting Ltd., and it’s unclear who its true homeowners are.
However, a search at DomainTools.com on the cellphone quantity listed on the homepage of myhotspot[.]ru (74957809554) reveals that quantity is related to eight domains.
Six of these domains are some variation of FreeFrog. Another area registered to that cellphone quantity is bothunter[.]me, which included a copyright credit score to “Hot Spot 2011.” At the annual Russian Internet Week IT conference in Moscow in 2012, Mr. Shefel gave a brief presentation about bothunter, which he described as a service he designed to establish inauthentic (bot) accounts on Russian social media networks.
Interestingly, one among r-fac1’s first posts to Searchengines[.]ru a 12 months earlier noticed this person requesting assist from different members who had entry to giant numbers of hacked social media accounts. R-fac1 advised discussion board members that he was solely wanting to make use of these accounts to publish innocent hyperlinks and feedback to the followers of the hacked profiles, and his publish urged he was testing one thing.
“Good afternoon,” r-fac1 wrote on Dec. 20, 2010. “I’m looking for people with their own not-recently-registered accounts on forums, (except for search) Social networks, Twitter, blogs, their websites. Tasks, depending on your accounts, post text and a link, sometimes just a link. Most often the topic is chatter, relaxation, discussion. Posting my links in your profiles, on your walls. A separate offer for people with a large set of contacts in instant messengers to try to use viral marketing.”
Neither Mr. Shefel nor Mr. Zhabykin responded to requests for remark.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Mr. Zhabykin quickly moved on to greater ventures, co-founding a cryptocurrency alternate primarily based in Moscow’s monetary middle referred to as Suex. In September 2021, Suex earned the excellence of turning into the primary crypto agency to be sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which successfully blocked Suex from the worldwide monetary system. The Treasury alleged Suex helped to course of thousands and thousands in legal transactions, together with the proceeds of quite a few ransomware assaults.
“I don’t understand how I got mixed up in this,” Zhabykin advised The New York Times in 2021. Zhabykin mentioned Suex, which is registered within the Czech Republic, was largely a failure and had performed solely a half dozen or so transactions since 2019.
The Russian enterprise monitoring service Rusprofile says Zhabykin is also the proprietor of an organization primarily based within the United Kingdom referred to as RideWithLocal; the corporate’s web site says it makes a speciality of arranging excursions for excessive sports activities, together with snowboarding, snowboarding, browsing and parasailing. Images from the RideWithLocal Facebook web page present helicopters dropping snowboarders and skiers atop some pretty steep mountains.
A screenshot from the Facebook web page of RideWithLocal.
Constella Intelligence discovered a cached copy of a now-deleted LinkedIn profile for Mr. Zhabykin, who described himself as a “sporttech/fintech specialist and mentor.”
“I create products and services worldwide, focusing on innovation and global challenges,” his LinkedIn profile mentioned. “I’ve started my career in 2002 and since then I worked in Moscow, different regions of Russia, including Siberia and in Finland, Brazil, United Kingdom, Sri Lanka. Over the last 15 years I contributed to many amazing products in the following industries: sports, ecology, sport tech, fin tech, electronic payments, big data, telecommunications, pulp and paper industry, wood processing and travel. My specialities are Product development, Mentorship, Strategy and Business development.”
Rusprofile reviews that Mikhail Borisovich Shefel is related to not less than eight present or now-defunct firms in Russia, together with Dengi IM (Money IM), Internet Capital, Internet Lawyer, Internet 2, Zao Hot Spot, and (my private favourite) an entity included in 2021 referred to as “All the Money in the World.”
Constella Intelligence discovered a number of official paperwork for Mr. Shefel that got here from hacked Russian cellphone, car and residence data. They point out Mr. Shefel is the registrant of a black Porsche Cayenne (Plate:X537SR197) and a Mercedes (Plate:P003PX90). Those car data present Mr. Shefel was born on May 28, 1986.
Rusprofile reveals that sooner or later close to the top of 2018, Shefel modified his final title to Lenin. DomainTools reviews that in 2018, Mr. Shefel’s firm Internet 2 LLC registered the area title Lenin[.]me. This now-defunct service bought bodily USSR-era Ruble notes that bear the picture of Vladimir Lenin, the founding father of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, Pavel Vrublevsky stays imprisoned in Russia, awaiting trial on fraud expenses levied towards the cost firm CEO in March 2022. Authorities allege Vrublevsky operated a number of fraudulent SMS-based cost schemes. They additionally accused Vrublevsky of facilitating cash laundering for Hydra, the biggest Russian darknet market. Hydra trafficked in unlawful medicine and monetary companies, together with cryptocurrency tumbling for cash laundering, alternate companies between cryptocurrency and Russian rubles, and the sale of falsified paperwork and hacking companies.
In 2013, Vrublevsky was sentenced to 2.5 years in a Russian penal colony for convincing one among his prime spammers and botmasters to launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assault towards a ChronoPay competitor that shut down the ticketing system for the state-owned Aeroflot airline.
Following his launch, Vrublevsky started engaged on a brand new digital funds platform primarily based in Hong Kong referred to as HPay Ltd (a.okay.a. Hong Kong Processing Corporation). HPay seems to have had a large number of shoppers that had been working schemes which bamboozled folks with faux lotteries and prize contests.
KrebsOnSecurity sought touch upon this analysis from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Secret Service, each of which have been concerned within the Target breach investigation over time. The FBI declined to remark. The Secret Service declined to substantiate or dispute any of the findings, however mentioned it’s nonetheless considering listening to from anybody who may need extra data.
“The U.S. Secret Service does not comment on any open investigation and won’t confirm or deny the accuracy in any reporting related to a criminal manner,” the company mentioned in a written assertion. “However, If you have any information relating to the subjects referenced in this article, please contact the U.S. Secret Service at mostwanted@usss.dhs.gov. The Secret Service pays a reward for information leading to the arrest of cybercriminals.”