Case details

The price of such a “viral subscription” was quite small for a program that could potentially reach millions of customers. According to BleepingComputer, criminals pay $75 a week or $200 a month to attack their victims.

The malware steals a wide range of information from infected devices, including saved credentials and browser information, cryptocurrency wallets, credit card details, email and other sensitive data from dozens of applications.

Raccoon Stealer subscribers also had access to an admin panel that allowed them to configure the malware, retrieve stolen data (logs), and create new malware builds to their liking.

• According to the undisclosed indictment, Sokolovsky was arrested in the Netherlands in March 2022.
• At the same time, the FBI, together with law enforcement in the Netherlands and Italy, destroyed Raccoon Infostealer’s infrastructure and also took the malware offline.
• After this, the Raccoon Stealer cybercrime group suspended its activities, saying that one of its leading developers was killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• Since then, the group has been rebooted twice with a new virus, each time providing new opportunities to steal data.
• Sokolovsky was extradited to the United States in February 2024 after being indicted in October 2022 on charges of wire fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft.

While the exact number has not yet been determined, FBI agents found more than 50 million unique credentials and forms of identification (email addresses, bank accounts, cryptocurrency addresses, credit card numbers, etc.) in stolen data that appeared to belong to millions of people. number of potential victims worldwide
– said law enforcement in 2022.

As part of the plea agreement, Sokolovsky agreed to at least return compensation. $910,844.61 It was decided to confiscate the amount of money. $23,975. Apparently this is not a final decision yet, so we still need to find out if he will be sentenced to prison.