A blogger from Virginia helped catch the Ukrainian hacker Muhu

A federal court in the state of New Jersey refused to release from prison on bail Ukrainian Sergey Vovnenko, extradited last week from Italy, where he was detained on June 12, 12 of the year by an American order.

According to prosecutors, 29-year-old Vovnenko, under the nicknames Tomas Rimis, Flycracker, Flyck, Fly (Fly), Centurion, MUXACC1, Strainer and Darklife, who lived in Naples during the reporting period, from September 2010 to August 2012, broke into accomplices in private computers and companies in the United States and other countries, and stole data, including user names and passwords, giving hackers access to foreign bank accounts, as well as plastic card numbers and personal data of their owners.

As stated in the 11-page accusatory document, then Vovnenko and his accomplices either removed money from the accounts of the victims and made purchases on their cards, or sold confidential information to other cybercriminals.

Vovnenko allegedly used a botnet, that is, as prosecutors put it, an “army” of other people’s computers secretly infected with malicious programs, numbering 13 thousand machines. He was also an active user of three cybercriminal forums and was the administrator of two of them. In particular, hackers sold stolen data through these sites and carried on active correspondence.

Vovnenko is officially accused of conspiring to commit fraud, computer hacking and identity theft.

He is theoretically threatened with tens of years of imprisonment, for only one collusion he can be sentenced to 30 years.

Parcel post

The furore in the cyber community of the United States was made not so much by official prosecution charges as by those that the famous virgin blogger Bryan Krebs, who specializes in cyber security, put forward against Vovnenko. He claimed that Vovnenko had sent heroin by mail to his home and reported this to the police, seeking to get even for his articles.

According to Krebs, he indirectly met Mukha in 2013, when he began to send him insulting tweets and dubious links. The hacker also posted on his blog on LJ copies of the Krebs credit file, instructions on how to get to his house, and a photo of his door.

Krebs checked with the Russian cybersecurity firm Group-IB and found out that the owner of the nickname Fly is the administrator of the now closed forum for criminals thecc.bz, where “cc” stands for credit cards.

Shortly after this, Krebs, according to him, secretly gained access to this forum and learned from one discussion thread that Fly was collecting donations in bitcoins from his “colleagues in the scam” to purchase heroin on the famous Silk Road website.

The American published screenshots in which his ill-wisher writes in English “1 gram of heroin No. 4,” and in Russian: “you only need 0,7 cue ball and a gram of Gerdos will go to Krebs” [spelling and stylistics of the author saved - BBC].

The foe's plan was uncomplicated: send the drug home to Krebs and report it to the police on behalf of his neighbors, who say they see people of the drug-addicted type constantly coming out of the blogger and that they are delivering drugs to their homes.

Forum users donated about two Bitcoins and, having bought a gram of heroin, Fly posted on the forum the post ID of an envelope that went to Krebs' home address.

The American said to the police, where he was told to call when the package arrived. Three days later, the local postman delivered to the blogger an envelope sent from Chicago and containing a copy of the glossy weekly Chicago Confidential, which publishes the Chicago Tribune.

On the back cover was a large advertisement for Lester Lampert jewelry, taped to it were 12 bags with the same black-and-gold skull that adorns the Silk Road drug dealer's advertisement. Krebs immediately called the police, who subsequently informed him that the bags contained almost pure heroin.

"The fly was swatted"

Krebs described this story, which greatly depressed his ill-wisher who had fallen in the eyes of other members of the forum.

This time, Fly sent the blogger not a drug, but ordered a local florist to place a wreath in the shape of a large cross at the Krebs door. Krebs' wife received a threatening message, after which the blogger lost her temper and set out to find out who was hiding under the nickname Mucha.

He began studying databases of forums chosen by cyber surfers. The Russian Group-IB came to the rescue again and found an unknown email account of the mysterious Fly. Someone hacked it in 2013, and told Krebs that there were many emails there, borrowed from the mail address of the then Fly bride named Irina, which the groom obviously followed.

Further research allowed to determine her full name - Irina Gumenyuk, whom Mucha subsequently married. Having rummaged in the posts of a woman in social networks, Krebs went out in the name of her husband - Sergey Vovnenko - and found out that the couple was with the young son in Naples.

The Americans shared this information with Italian authorities. Last June, Krebs received a call from an unnamed American law enforcement official who said that “the fly had been swatted.” Vovnenko was arrested and began to await extradition to the United States.

In July last year, Krebs received a letter from Vovnenko, who was sitting in the Poggioreale prison in Naples - however, having burned himself with milk, the blogger decided to blow the water and did not open the envelope, but handed it to the feds. You never know what Fly will send this time?

However, the envelope contained only a letter to the page, which began with a friendly greeting in English and continued in Ukrainian. From his translation it followed that the Naples prisoner was full of remorse, which Krebs found quite sincere.

Vovnenko apologized for the fact that he published the blogger's credit file and threatened his relatives. He also wrote that he forgives Krebs that shortly after his arrest in Italy, he had already posted his personal information and photos on his blog.

Last December, from Naples, Krebs received a postcard with views of the city and New Year and Christmas greetings.

Now Krebs writes that he is waiting for a personal meeting with Mukha, who is not so far from Virginia.

On the eve of a group of supposedly Russian hackers, by hacking the servers of Dow Jones & Co.The owner of the Wall Street Journal and several other news outlets, stole information of interest to bidders before it was published, reports Bloomberg, citing sources.

According to them, the incident is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Secret Service. The investigation began at least a year ago, one source specified.

Earlier, a hacker attack on US government computer systems was stolen fingerprint data approximately 5,6 of millions of Americans.