Russian Police Arrested Hacker Involved in WebMoney Scam

According to the news reported by The Ecommerce Journal on November 26, 2008, the Russian local police nabbed a young man studying in some university in connection of selling malicious software used to steal money from online users.

The police revealed that the 20-year old young man (name not disclosed) designed special software, a Trojan virus that steals money from accounts at the WebMoney, an online payment solution. Nearly 4.5 Million users across the world use WebMoney to make payments. Moreover, other payment processors could also be exploited in the scam.

According to the reports, the malware developed by the young man changes the details of a payment so that money will be diverted to the miscreant's account. He further claimed that he was tired of stealing money from individual accounts; therefore, he developed his own code to withdraw money faster. Later on, he thought that he could make more money by selling his code, which ultimately led to his arrest. Considering the functions of a program, he was selling it at a very low price of US$ 100.

Till the time of his arrest, the miscreant had developed three editions of his virus with a simple interface in each version. According to the local police, by just making some changes in the setting, any programmer could infect machine of his victim.

Security experts said that it is very interesting that the police have arrested the creator of malicious program and not the distributor.

Moreover, the accused pleaded guilty of his involvement in the scam and helping investigators in their search in exchange of soft treatment. According to the statements given by him, he started using Internet users to make money to spend on luxury items such as a car and a new laptop.

In addition, the police has not confirmed the exact number of people fallen victim to this scam, but the investigations revealed that thousands of people's accounts were robbed in this scam. According to the reports, the miscreant has already sold over 50 copies of the malicious program.

Related article: Russian Hackers Break into NOAA to Push Pills

» SPAMfighter News - 10-12-2008

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