U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) stepped up and took action against Evil Corp which is a Russia-based cybercriminal organization responsible for the development and distribution of the Dridex malware which has resulted into more than $100 million of theft across 40 countries.
Crux of the Matter
Dridex malware is used to infect computers and harvest login credentials from banks and financial institutions.
This action was carried in coordination with the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
Department of Justice also charged two of Evil Corp’s members and announced a reward for information up to $5 million leading to the capture or conviction of Evil Corp’s leader.
Steven T. Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury said, “This coordinated action is sanctioning Evil Corp as part of sweeping action and will disrupt the massive phishing campaigns orchestrated by this Russian-based hacker group.”
Curiopedia
Evil Corp is the Russia-based cybercriminal organization run by a group of individuals based in Moscow. They are responsible for the development and distribution of Dridex malware. Dridex also is known as Bugat and Cridex is a form of malware that specializes in stealing bank credentials via a system that utilizes macros from Microsoft Word. The targets of this malware are Windows users who open an email attachment in Word or Excel, causing macros to activate and download Dridex, infecting the computer and opening the victim to banking theft. Once a system is infected, Evil Corp uses compromised credentials to fraudulently transfer funds from victims’ bank accounts to those of accounts controlled by the group. As of 2016, Evil Corp had harvested banking credentials from customers at approximately 300 banks and financial institutions in over 40 countries mostly in the US and UK.
Curated Coverage
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