US$3m reward for hacker Evgeniy Bogachev highest ever by US officials
The US State Department and FBI are offering US$3 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Russian hacker Evgeniy Bogachev - the highest bounty US authorities have ever offered in a cybercase.
The US State Department and FBI are offering US$3 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Russian hacker Evgeniy Bogachev - the highest bounty US authorities have ever offered in a cybercase.
Bogachev is accused of running a computer attack network called GameOver Zeus that allegedly stole more than US$100 million from online bank accounts.
He has been charged with conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in connection with his alleged role as administrator of the network .
Bureau officials believed he is still in Russia.
Joseph Demarest, head of the FBI's cybercrime division, said the agency was aware of 60 different cyberthreat groups linked to nation-states.
He did not identify which countries were believed to be behind these groups. Demarest said Russia's internal security agency, the FSB, had expressed tentative interest in working with US authorities on investigating cybercrimes. He did not link the offer of cooperation to the Bogachev case.
China has not expressed any interest in cooperating on cybercrimes, he added. Last November, the US indicted five Chinese military officers and accused them of hacking into nuclear power, metals and solar products industries.
Demarest said the FBI had learned within a month of Sony Pictures' first report of a large-scale cyberattack that North Korea was responsible.
"We were absolutely positive in a very short period of time" that the North Korean government was behind the attack, he said.
Despite assertions from some security experts that the Sony hackers might have had help from inside the studio, Demarest said officers had found no evidence to back up such claims.
The FBI had learned of "over 100 major" cyberattacks in 2014, he added.
