An elusive hacker who glided by the deal with “UNKN” and ran the early Russian ransomware teams GandCrab and REvil now has a reputation and a face. Authorities in Germany say 31-year-old Russian Daniil Maksimovich Shchukin headed each cybercrime gangs and helped perform a minimum of 130 acts of laptop sabotage and extortion in opposition to victims throughout the nation between 2019 and 2021.
Shchukin was named as UNKN (a.ok.a. UNKNOWN) in an advisory printed by the German Federal Felony Police (the “Bundeskriminalamt” or BKA for brief). The BKA stated Shchukin and one other Russian — 43-year-old Anatoly Sergeevitsch Kravchuk — extorted almost $2 million euros throughout two dozen cyberattacks that prompted greater than 35 million euros in whole financial harm.
Daniil Maksimovich SHCHUKIN, a.ok.a. UNKN, and Anatoly Sergeevitsch Karvchuk, alleged leaders of the GandCrab and REvil ransomware teams.
Germany’s BKA stated Shchukin acted as the top of one of many largest worldwide working ransomware teams GandCrab and REvil, which pioneered the apply of double extortion — charging victims as soon as for a key wanted to unlock hacked methods, and a separate fee in trade for a promise to not publish stolen information.
Shchukin’s identify appeared in a Feb. 2023 submitting (PDF) from the U.S. Justice Division looking for the seizure of varied cryptocurrency accounts related to proceeds from the REvil ransomware gang’s actions. The federal government stated the digital pockets tied to Shchukin contained greater than $317,000 in ill-gotten cryptocurrency.
The Gandcrab ransomware associates program first surfaced in January 2018, and paid enterprising hackers large shares of the income only for hacking into person accounts at main companies. The Gandcrab crew would then attempt to broaden that entry, usually siphoning huge quantities of delicate and inside paperwork within the course of. The malware’s curators shipped 5 main revisions to the GandCrab code, every corresponding with sneaky new options and bug fixes aimed toward thwarting the efforts of laptop safety companies to stymie the unfold of the malware.
On Could 31, 2019, the GandCrab crew introduced the group was shutting down after extorting greater than $2 billion from victims. “We’re a residing proof that you are able to do evil and get off scot-free,” GandCrab’s farewell tackle famously quipped. “We’ve got proved that one could make a lifetime of cash in a single yr. We’ve got proved you can turn into primary by basic admission, not in your individual conceit.”
The REvil ransomware associates program materialized across the identical as GandCrab’s demise, fronted by a person named UNKNOWN who introduced on a Russian cybercrime discussion board that he’d deposited $1 million within the discussion board’s escrow to point out he meant enterprise. By this time, many cybersecurity specialists had concluded REvil was little greater than a reorganization of GandCrab.
UNKNOWN additionally gave an interview to Dmitry Smilyanets, a former malicious hacker employed by Recorded Future, whereby UNKNOWN described a rags-to-riches story unencumbered by ethics and morals.
“As a toddler, I scrounged by way of the trash heaps and smoked cigarette butts,” UNKNOWN instructed Recorded Future. “I walked 10 km one method to the varsity. I wore the identical garments for six months. In my youth, in a communal house, I didn’t eat for 2 and even three days. Now I’m a millionaire.”
As described in The Ransomware Searching Workforce by Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden, UNKNOWN and REvil reinvested vital earnings into enhancing their success and mirroring practices of reputable companies. The authors wrote:
“Simply as a real-world producer would possibly rent different firms to deal with logistics or net design, ransomware builders more and more outsourced duties past their purview, focusing as an alternative on enhancing the standard of their ransomware. The upper high quality ransomware—which, in lots of circumstances, the Searching Workforce couldn’t break—resulted in additional and better pay-outs from victims. The monumental funds enabled gangs to reinvest of their enterprises. They employed extra specialists, and their success accelerated.”
“Criminals raced to hitch the booming ransomware economic system. Underworld ancillary service suppliers sprouted or pivoted from different felony work to satisfy builders’ demand for personalized help. Partnering with gangs like GandCrab, ‘cryptor’ suppliers ensured ransomware couldn’t be detected by customary anti-malware scanners. ‘Preliminary entry brokerages’ specialised in stealing credentials and discovering vulnerabilities in goal networks, promoting that entry to ransomware operators and associates. Bitcoin “tumblers” provided reductions to gangs that used them as a most well-liked vendor for laundering ransom funds. Some contractors had been open to working with any gang, whereas others entered unique partnerships.”
REvil would evolve right into a feared “big-game-hunting” machine able to extracting hefty extortion funds from victims, largely going after organizations with greater than $100 million in annual revenues and fats new cyber insurance coverage insurance policies that had been recognized to pay out.
Over the July 4, 2021 weekend in the US, REvil hacked into and extorted Kaseya, an organization that dealt with IT operations for greater than 1,500 companies, nonprofits and authorities companies. The FBI would later announce they’d infiltrated the ransomware group’s servers previous to the Kaseya hack however couldn’t tip their hand on the time. REvil by no means recovered from that core compromise, or from the FBI’s launch of a free decryption key for REvil victims who couldn’t or didn’t pay.
Shchukin is from Krasnodar, Russia and is assumed to reside there, the BKA stated.
“Based mostly on the investigations up to now, it’s assumed that the needed particular person is overseas, presumably in Russia,” the BKA suggested. “Journey behaviour can’t be dominated out.”
There’s little that connects Shchukin to UNKNOWN’s numerous accounts on the Russian crime boards. However a evaluation of the Russian crime boards listed by the cyber intelligence agency Intel 471 exhibits there may be loads connecting Shchukin to a hacker identification referred to as “Ger0in” who operated giant botnets and offered “installs” — permitting different cybercriminals to quickly deploy malware of their option to 1000’s of PCs in a single go. Nevertheless, Ger0in was solely energetic between 2010 and 2011, effectively earlier than UNKNOWN’s look because the REvil entrance man.
A evaluation of the mugshots launched by the BKA on the picture comparability web site Pimeyes discovered a match on this birthday celebration from 2023, which incorporates a younger man named Daniel sporting the identical fancy watch as within the BKA images.
Pictures from Daniil Shchukin’s celebration celebration in Krasnodar in 2023.
Replace, April 6, 12:06 p.m. ET: A reader forwarded this English-dubbed audio recording from the a ccc.de (37C3) convention speak in Germany from 2023 that beforehand outed Shchukin because the REvil chief (Shchuckin is talked about at round 24:25).
