Russian nationwide accused of creating, promoting malware seems in U.S. court docket

A Russian nationwide accused of creating and licensing the “NLBrute” malware and promoting no less than 35,000 compromised logins appeared in a Florida federal court docket on Tuesday going through fees of conspiracy, entry gadget fraud and laptop fraud.

Dariy Pankov, often known as “dpxaker,” was arrested within the Republic of Georgia on Oct. 4, 2022 and was not too long ago extradited to america, U.S. Lawyer Roger B. Handberg stated in a press release Wednesday. Pankov faces a most of 47 years in federal jail if convicted on all counts, Handberg stated.

Pankov stands accused of creating NLBrute — often known as nl.exe or nlbrute.exe — and promoting it on the market on an underground discussion board as early as June 2016, in line with an indictment unsealed this week. Throughout that point he additionally bought greater than 35,000 compromised login credentials for entry to methods all over the world, together with in america, France, the UK, Italy and Australia. A minimum of two of these gross sales have been to undercover U.S. regulation enforcement officers, in line with the indictment, and concerned login credentials for 2 separate Florida-based regulation companies.

Credentials bought by Pankov have been “used to facilitate a variety of criminal activity, together with ransomware assaults and tax fraud,” Handberg’s assertion stated.

Between August 2016 and January 2019 Pankov netted almost $360,000 from each credential gross sales and providing entry to NLBrute, prosecutors allege. The indictment was initially filed in April 2019 and contains discover that the federal government intends to take $358,437 in restitution.

“Mr. Pankov maintains his innocence and appears ahead to his day in court docket,” his legal professional, Igor Litvak, informed CyberScoop in an e mail. “He has plead not responsible.”

Up to date Feb. 23, 2023: This story has been up to date to incorporate a press release from Pankov’s legal professional, Igor Litvak.