UK man running worldwide ransomware scheme sentenced to 6-yrs imprisonment

A man, aged 24, residing inside England ran one ransomware scheme attacking multi-million PCs in 20 countries that got him sentenced to over 6-yrs in jail.

As per NCA (National Crime Agency) of UK, the man, Zain Qaiser carried out the scheme via purchase of advertisements from adult websites, insertion of malware into those ads, as well as diverting victims onto malware-laden websites. Qaiser, while being a member of an organized crime syndicate speaking Russian language, assisted in culling victims, garnering no less than 700K pounds ($910K) in payments spanning a large number of years.

The malicious websites ran the Angler attack toolkit that exploited security flaws within visitors' Web-browsers for contaminating their systems with malware. The malware was essentially the Reveton ransomware which blocked end-users from accessing their computers while missives appeared on-screen posing as sent from agencies of law enforcement, particularly FBI.

The NCA further alleges that apart from distributing Reveton, when the firms from which the accused rented space for the advertisements unearthed how Qaiser used them as also attempted at preventing him, Qaiser started blackmailing them as well as executing DDoS assaults. According to the National Crime Agency, Qaiser targeted 2-or-more pornographic advertisement agencies with distributed denial-of-service assaults while threatened an agency director with first totally destroying his server followed with dispatching bulk child porn contents in case he was prevented from renting fresh advertisement space. www.zdnet.com posted this dated April 9, 2019. Senior Investigating Officer Nigel Leary of NCA stated that Zain Qaiser was the most important member of the organized crime syndicate acquiring ransom payments amounting multi-million pounds through blackmailing of innumerable people with fake investigations.

Qaiser, who used the handle "KING" on the Internet, amassed over 500K pounds via his abusive global scheme, expending many thousands for lodging in posh hotels, buying luxury items, drugs, visiting prostitutes and gambling in spite of having no job while also having a family.

Qaiser pleaded guilty after charged with eleven counts of offenses, including 4 of intentionally attempting at impairing a PC; 3 of a false representation fraud; 3 of blackmail; and 1 of owning property from criminal acts.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/16/2019