Two Members of the Romanian Cybercriminal Enterprise Bayrob Group Sentenced on 21 Counts
TWO MEMBERS OF THE ROMANIAN CYBERCRIMINAL ENTERPRISE BAYROB GROUP SENTENCED ON 21 COUNTS RELATING TO INFECTING OVER 400,000 VICTIM COMPUTERS WITH MALWARE AND STEALING AT LEAST $4 MILLION
Bogdan Nicolescu, 37, and Radu Miclaus, 37, both from Bucharest, Romania, were sentenced to 20 years and 18 years, respectively, for their roles in a scheme to, among other things, infect more than 400,000 computers with malware and gain access to credit card and other information for later sale on dark market websites.
According to testimony at trial and court documents, Nicolescu, Miclaus, and others operated a criminal enterprise referred to as the “Bayrob Group” from Bucharest, Romania. It began in 2007 with the development of proprietary malware, which they disseminated through malicious emails purporting to be legitimate emails from entities and agencies such as Western Union, Norton AntiVirus, and the IRS. When recipients clicked on an attached file, the malware secretly installed itself onto their computers.
This malware harvested email addresses from the infected computer, such as from contact lists or email accounts, and then sent malicious emails to these harvested email addresses. By using the infected computers to reach out and control additional computers, the defendants infected and controlled more than 400,000 individual computers, primarily in the United States.
In addition to using the infected network to expand its size, Nicolescu, Miclaus, and other members of the Bayrob Group used the collective processing power of the computer network to solve complex algorithms for the financial benefit of the group, a process known as cryptocurrency mining.
Read more: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndoh/pr/two-members-romanian-cybercriminal-enterprise-bayrob-group-sentenced-21-counts-relating