Final week, the US joined the U.Ok. and Australia in sanctioning and charging a Russian man named Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev because the chief of the notorious LockBit ransomware group. LockBit’s chief “LockBitSupp” claims the feds named the incorrect man, saying the costs don’t clarify how they related him to Khoroshev. This submit examines the actions of Khoroshev’s many alter egos on the cybercrime boards, and tracks the profession of a gifted malware writer who has written and bought malicious code for the previous 14 years.
Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev. Picture: treasury.gov.
On Might 7, the U.S. Division of Justice indicted Khoroshev on 26 felony counts, together with extortion, wire fraud, and conspiracy. The federal government alleges Khoroshev created, bought and used the LockBit ransomware pressure to personally extort greater than $100 million from tons of of sufferer organizations, and that LockBit as a gaggle extorted roughly half a billion {dollars} over 4 years.
Federal investigators say Khoroshev ran LockBit as a “ransomware-as-a-service” operation, whereby he stored 20 p.c of any ransom quantity paid by a sufferer group contaminated together with his code, with the remaining 80 p.c of the fee going to LockBit associates chargeable for spreading the malware.
Monetary sanctions levied towards Khoroshev by the U.S. Division of the Treasury listed his identified electronic mail and road deal with (in Voronezh, in southwest Russia), passport quantity, and even his tax ID quantity (howdy, Russian tax authorities). The Treasury submitting says Khoroshev used the emails sitedev5@yandex.ru, and khoroshev1@icloud.com.
In response to DomainTools.com, the deal with sitedev5@yandex.ru was used to register at the very least six domains, together with a Russian enterprise registered in Khoroshev’s title referred to as tkaner.com, which is a weblog about clothes and materials.
A search on the breach-tracking service Constella Intelligence on the cellphone quantity in Tkaner’s registration data — 7.9521020220 — brings up a number of official Russian authorities paperwork itemizing the quantity’s proprietor as Dmitri Yurievich Khoroshev.
One other area registered to that cellphone quantity was stairwell[.]ru, which at one level marketed the sale of picket staircases. Constella finds that the e-mail addresses webmaster@stairwell.ru and admin@stairwell.ru used the password 225948.
DomainTools stories that stairwell.ru for a number of years included the registrant’s title as “Dmitrij Ju Horoshev,” and the e-mail deal with pin@darktower.su. In response to Constella, this electronic mail deal with was utilized in 2010 to register an account for a Dmitry Yurievich Khoroshev from Voronezh, Russia on the internet hosting supplier firstvds.ru.
Picture: Shutterstock.
Cyber intelligence agency Intel 471 finds that pin@darktower.ru was utilized by a Russian-speaking member referred to as Pin on the English-language cybercrime discussion board Opensc. Pin was energetic on Opensc round March 2012, and authored 13 posts that largely involved information encryption points, or the best way to repair bugs in code.
Different posts involved {custom} code Pin claimed to have written that will bypass reminiscence protections on Home windows XP and Home windows 7 techniques, and inject malware into reminiscence area usually allotted to trusted purposes on a Home windows machine.
Pin additionally was energetic at that very same time on the Russian-language safety discussion board Antichat, the place they informed fellow discussion board members to contact them on the ICQ prompt messenger quantity 669316.
NEROWOLFE
A search on the ICQ quantity 669316 at Intel 471 reveals that in April 2011, a consumer by the title NeroWolfe joined the Russian cybercrime discussion board Zloy utilizing the e-mail deal with d.horoshev@gmail.com, and from an Web deal with in Voronezh, RU.
Constella finds the identical password tied to webmaster@stairwell.ru (225948) was utilized by the e-mail deal with 3k@xakep.ru, which Intel 471 says was registered to greater than a dozen NeroWolfe accounts throughout simply as many Russian cybercrime boards between 2011 and 2015.
NeroWolfe’s introductory submit to the discussion board Verified in Oct. 2011 mentioned he was a system administrator and C++ coder.
“Putting in SpyEYE, ZeuS, any DDoS and spam admin panels,” NeroWolfe wrote. This consumer mentioned they focus on creating malware, creating pc worms, and crafting new methods to hijack Internet browsers.
“I can present my portfolio on request,” NeroWolfe wrote. “P.S. I don’t modify another person’s code or work with another person’s frameworks.”
In April 2013, NeroWolfe wrote in a non-public message to a different Verified discussion board consumer that he was promoting a malware “loader” program that would bypass all the safety protections on Home windows XP and Home windows 7.
“The entry to the community is barely restricted,” NeroWolfe mentioned of the loader, which he was promoting for $5,000. “You received’t handle to bind a port. Nevertheless, it’s fairly potential to ship information. The code is written in C.”
In an October 2013 dialogue on the cybercrime discussion board Exploit, NeroWolfe weighed in on the karmic ramifications of ransomware. On the time, ransomware-as-a-service didn’t exist but, and lots of members of Exploit had been nonetheless making good cash from “lockers,” comparatively crude packages that locked the consumer out of their system till they agreed to make a small fee (often a number of hundred {dollars} by way of pay as you go Inexperienced Dot playing cards).
Lockers, which presaged the approaching ransomware scourge, had been typically considered by the Russian-speaking cybercrime boards as innocent moneymaking alternatives, as a result of they often didn’t search to hurt the host pc or endanger information on the system. Additionally, there have been nonetheless loads of locker packages that aspiring cybercriminals might both purchase or lease to make a gentle earnings.
NeroWolfe reminded discussion board denizens that they had been simply as weak to ransomware assaults as their would-be victims, and that what goes round comes round.
“Guys, do you have got a conscience?,” NeroWolfe wrote. “Okay, lockers, community gopstop aka enterprise in Russian. The very last thing was at all times squeezed out of the suckers. However encoders, nobody is protected against them, together with the native viewers.”
If Khoroshev was ever fearful that somebody exterior of Russia may be capable of join his early hacker handles to his actual life persona, that’s not clear from reviewing his historical past on-line. The truth is, the identical electronic mail deal with tied to so lots of NeroWolfe’s accounts on the boards — 3k@xakep.ru — was utilized in 2011 to create an account for a Dmitry Yurevich Khoroshev on the Russian social media community Vkontakte.
NeroWolfe appears to have deserted all of his discussion board accounts someday in 2016. In November 2016, an exploit[.]ru member filed an official criticism towards NeroWolfe, saying NeroWolfe had been paid $2,000 to supply {custom} code however by no means completed the venture and vanished.
It’s unclear what occurred to NeroWolfe or to Khoroshev throughout this time. Perhaps he acquired arrested, or some shut associates did. Maybe he simply determined it was time to put low and hit the reset on his operational safety efforts, given his previous failures on this regard. It’s additionally potential NeroWolfe landed an actual job someplace for a number of years, fathered a toddler, and/or needed to put his cybercrime profession on maintain.
PUTINKRAB
Or maybe Khoroshev noticed the approaching ransomware business for the limitless pot of gold that it was about to turn into, after which devoted himself to engaged on {custom} ransomware code. That’s what the federal government believes.
The indictment towards Khoroshev says he used the hacker nickname Putinkrab, and Intel 471 says this corresponds to a username that was first registered throughout three main Russian cybercrime boards in early 2019.
KrebsOnSecurity might discover no apparent connections between Putinkrab and any of Khoroshev’s older identities. Nevertheless, if Putinkrab was Khoroshev, he would have realized from his previous errors and began recent with a brand new id (which he did). But in addition, it’s seemingly the federal government hasn’t shared all the intelligence it has collected towards him (extra on that in a bit).
Putinkrab’s first posts on the Russian cybercrime boards XSS, Exploit and UFOLabs noticed this consumer promoting ransomware supply code written in C.
A machine-translated advert for ransomware supply code from Putinkrab on the Russian language cybercrime discussion board UFOlabs in 2019. Picture: Ke-la.com.
In April 2019, Putkinkrab provided an associates program that will run on prime of his custom-made ransomware code.
“I need to work for a share of the ransoms: 20/80,” Putinkrab wrote on Exploit. “20 p.c is my share for the work, you get 80% of the ransoms. The proportion might be lowered as much as 10/90 if the volumes are good. However now, quickly, till the service is totally automated, we’re working utilizing a distinct algorithm.”
All through the summer time of 2019, Putinkrab posted a number of updates to Exploit about new options being added to his ransomware pressure, in addition to novel evasion methods to keep away from detection by safety instruments. He additionally informed discussion board members he was in search of traders for a brand new ransomware venture based mostly on his code.
In response to an Exploit member who complained that the safety business was making it tougher to revenue from ransomware, Putinkrab mentioned that was as a result of so many cybercriminals had been counting on crappy ransomware code.
“The overwhelming majority of prime antiviruses have acquired behavioral evaluation, which blocks 95% of crypto-lockers at their root,” Putinkrab wrote. “Cryptolockers made a variety of noise within the press, however lazy system directors don’t make backups after that. The overwhelming majority of cryptolockers are written by individuals who have little understanding of cryptography. Due to this fact, decryptors seem on the Web, and with them the hope that information might be decrypted with out paying a ransom. They simply sit and wait. Contact with the proprietor of the hot button is misplaced over time.”
Putinkrab mentioned he had each confidence his ransomware code was a game-changer, and an enormous cash machine.
“The sport is simply gaining momentum,” Putinkrab wrote. “Weak gamers lose and are eradicated.”
The remainder of his response was structured like a poem:
“On this world, the strongest survive.
Our life is only a battle.
The winner would be the smartest,
Who has his head on his shoulders.”
Putinkrab’s ultimate submit got here on August 23, 2019. The Justice Division says the LockBit ransomware associates program was formally launched 5 months later. From there on out, the federal government says, Khoroshev adopted the persona of LockBitSupp. In his introductory submit on Exploit, LockBit’s mastermind mentioned the ransomware pressure had been in growth since September 2019.
The unique LockBit malware was written in C (a language that NeroWolfe excelled at). Right here’s the unique description of LockBit, from its maker:
“The software program is written in C and Assembler; encryption is carried out by way of the I/O Completion Port; there’s a port scanning native networks and an possibility to seek out all DFS, SMB, WebDAV community shares, an admin panel in Tor, automated check decryption; a decryption device is supplied; there’s a chat with Push notifications, a Jabber bot that forwards correspondence and an choice to terminate companies/processes in line which forestall the ransomware from opening information at a sure second. The ransomware units file permissions and removes blocking attributes, deletes shadow copies, clears logs and mounts hidden partitions; there may be an choice to drag-and-drop information/folders and a console/hidden mode. The ransomware encrypts information in components in numerous locations: the bigger the file dimension, the extra components there are. The algorithms used are AES + RSA.
You’re the one who determines the ransom quantity after speaking with the sufferer. The ransom paid in any forex that fits you can be transferred to your wallets. The Jabber bot serves as an admin panel and is used for banning, offering decryption instruments, chatting – Jabber is used for completely every part.”
CONCLUSION
Does the above timeline show that NeroWolfe/Khoroshev is LockBitSupp? No. Nevertheless, it does point out Khoroshev was for a few years deeply invested in numerous schemes involving botnets, stolen information, and malware he wrote that others used to nice impact. NeroWolfe’s many non-public messages from fellow discussion board members verify this.
NeroWolfe’s specialty was creating {custom} code that employed novel stealth and evasion methods, and he was at all times fast to volunteer his companies on the boards every time anybody was trying assistance on a malware venture that referred to as for a powerful C or C++ programmer.
Somebody with these {qualifications} — in addition to demonstrated mastery of information encryption and decryption methods — would have been in nice demand by the ransomware-as-a-service business that took off at across the similar time NeroWolfe vanished from the boards.
Somebody like that who’s close to or on the prime of their recreation vis-a-vis their friends doesn’t merely stroll away from that stage of affect, neighborhood standing, and potential earnings stream until compelled to take action by circumstances past their instant management.
It’s vital to notice that Putinkrab didn’t simply materialize out of skinny air in 2019 — all of a sudden endowed with data about the best way to write superior, stealthy ransomware strains. That data clearly got here from somebody who’d already had years of expertise constructing and deploying ransomware strains towards real-life sufferer organizations.
Thus, whoever Putinkrab was earlier than they adopted that moniker, it’s a secure guess they had been concerned within the growth and use of earlier, extremely profitable ransomware strains. One robust potential candidate is Cerber ransomware, the most well-liked and efficient associates program working between early 2016 and mid-2017. Cerber thrived as a result of it emerged as an early mover available in the market for ransomware-as-a-service choices.
In February 2024, the FBI seized LockBit’s cybercrime infrastructure on the darkish internet, following an apparently prolonged infiltration of the group’s operations. America has already indicted and sanctioned at the very least 5 different alleged LockBit ringleaders or associates, so presumably the feds have been in a position to attract extra sources from these investigations.
Additionally, it appears seemingly that the three nationwide intelligence companies concerned in bringing these prices aren’t displaying all of their playing cards. For instance, the Treasury paperwork on Khoroshev point out a single cryptocurrency deal with, and but consultants interviewed for this story say there are not any apparent clues connecting this deal with to Khoroshev or Putinkrab.
However on condition that LockBitSupp has been actively concerned in Lockbit ransomware assaults towards organizations for 4 years now, the federal government nearly actually has an in depth listing of the LockBit chief’s numerous cryptocurrency addresses — and doubtless even his financial institution accounts in Russia. And little question the cash path from a few of these transactions was traceable to its final beneficiary (or shut sufficient).
Not lengthy after Khoroshev was charged because the chief of LockBit, quite a few open-source intelligence accounts on Telegram started extending the data launched by the Treasury Division. Inside hours, these sleuths had unearthed greater than a dozen bank card accounts utilized by Khoroshev over the previous decade, in addition to his numerous checking account numbers in Russia.
The purpose is, this submit is predicated on information that’s accessible to and verifiable by KrebsOnSecurity. Woodward & Bernstein’s supply within the Watergate investigation — Deep Throat — famously informed the 2 reporters to “observe the cash.” That is at all times glorious recommendation. However today, that may be quite a bit simpler mentioned than completed — particularly with individuals who a) don’t want to be discovered, and b) don’t precisely file annual stories.
