FBI Puts $5 Million Bounty On Russian Hackers Behind Dridex Banking Malware

The United States Department of Justice today disclosed the identities of two Russian hackers and charged them for developing and distributing the Dridex banking Trojan using which the duo stole more than $100 million over a period of 10 years.

Maksim Yakubets, the leader of ‘Evil Corp’ hacking group, and his co-conspirator Igor Turashev primarily distributed Dridex — also known as ‘Bugat’ and ‘Cridex’ — through multi-million email campaigns and targeted numerous organizations around the world.

The State Department has also announced a reward of up to $5 million—the largest offered bounty to date for a cybercrime suspect—for providing information that could lead to the arrest of Yakubets, who remains at large.

“Bugat is a multifunction malware package designed to automate the theft of confidential personal and financial information, such as online banking credentials, from infected computers,” the DoJ said in its press release.

“Bugat malware was specifically crafted to defeat antivirus and other protective measures employed by victims. Later versions of the malware were designed with the added function of assisting in the installation of ransomware.”

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