US imposes sanctions on a citizen of Uzbekistan accused of hacking financial institutions

The United States accused a group of Evil Corp hackers of stealing $100 million from financial institutions in more than 40 countries. The US Treasury introduced sanctions against seven Russian organizations and 17 people. A reward of $5 million has been announced for information about the leader of the group – this is the largest reward for a hacker in history.

“Evil Corp used Dridex to infect computers and collect the credentials of hundreds of banks and financial institutions in more than 40 countries, which led to the theft of more than $100 million,” the website of the Finance Ministry said. It emphasized that Evil Corp is “one of the notorious cybercrime organizations in the world”.

In total, seven organizations and 17 people were included in the sanctions list. They are citizens of Russia, Spain, Israel, Moldova, Greece, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and France. 

Among the “key members” of the group, the ministry also named Artem Yakubets, Dmitry Smirnov, Ivan Tuchkov, Andrey Plotnitsky, Dmitry Slobodsky and Kirill Slobodsky. Also, the following financial intermediaries of the group were imposed sanctions: Alexei Bashilov, Ruslan Zamulko, David Huberman, Carlo Alvarez, Georgios Manidis, Tatyana Shevchuk, Azamat Safarov (a citizen of Uzbekistan) and Gulsara Burkhonova.