Russian authorities decided to change the restraint measures of Konstantin Kozlovsky, one of the alleged leaders of the Lurk hacking group. The decision was made just yesterday, as Kozlovsky should have been released today. The defendant is not able to use the telephone, the Internet and communicate with other persons involved in the case. He will also be forced to appear in court upon further investigations.
Kozlovsky was arrested back in May 2016, as he was accused of computer fraud, illegal access to protected computers, as well the creation, use and distribution of malicious software in complicity with an organized crime group. As per Russian authorities, around twenty more programmers are involved in the case.
The investigation about this hacking group was completed in 2017, resulting in dozens of charges brought against 24 people; the criminal cases materials filled 585 volumes. Russian Government stated that these people are guilty for the theft of 1.2 billion rubles from Russian banks’ client accounts, the creation of the once most popular set of Angler exploits and the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s email.
During January 5, 2019, a hearing was held in the Kirovsky District Court of Yekaterinburg in the case of the cybercriminal group Lurk, about the 1.2 billion rubles supposedly stolen by the hackers. In the hearing, one of the defendants directly accused the Russian Special Services of illegally intercepting their correspondence.
According to a petition sent to the court by the defendant Alexander S., the Lurk participants used the Ejabberd application for communication. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that successfully delivered messages are not saved on the server, but only undelivered ones are saved. That is, messages can only be intercepted online.
He is a cyber security and malware researcher. He studied Computer Science and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2006. He is actively working as an cyber security investigator. He also worked for different security companies. His everyday job includes researching about new cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in enterprise security implementation.