Digital Forensics Dispatch

Hacker Sentenced and Ordered to Pay Restitution of $2.5 Million

June 29, 2021

On June 24, 2021 the Department of Justice (DOJ), issued a press release about a Ukrainian national who was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $2.5 million dollars for his role in the hacking group known as FIN7. Court documents indicate that Andrii Kolpakov, a 33 year-old who worked with the FIN7 group, was identified as a pen tester for the group.

Kolpakov was arrested in Spain on June 28, 2018 and was extradited to the United States at the request of U.S. law enforcement on June 1, 2019. Kolpakov pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking in June of 2020.

The FIN7 group has been responsible for some of the attacks on U.S. companies, “predominantly in the restaurant, gambling, and hospitality industries”, the release states. FIN7 apparently used sophisticated phishing emails to trick people and businesses into downloading attachments that would install a version of the Carbanak malware to steal payment card information from business’s customers. The hacking group would then sell that data online in underground marketplaces.

“In the United States alone, FIN7 successfully breached the computer networks of businesses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, stealing more than 20 million customer card records from over 6,500 individual point-of-sale terminals at more than 3,600 separate business locations” the press release states. The cost of these breaches cost the victims more than $1 billion.

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