203/68 Friday, June 6, 2025
Ukrainian police have arrested a 35-year-old man accused of hacking into more than 5,000 user accounts from international hosting companies to illegally mine cryptocurrency using unauthorized server resources. The operation, which caused an estimated $4.5 million in damages, involved hijacking customer accounts used for website and platform hosting, installing and running virtual machines to mine cryptocurrency, significantly abusing computing infrastructure without permission.
Investigators revealed that the hacker had been active since 2018, using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques to identify and exploit weak infrastructure across various international organizations. The suspect regularly changed locations to evade detection, operating from regions including Poltava, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk. Authorities seized computers, mobile phones, bank books, and other digital evidence. Initial analysis confirmed the hacker’s presence on various underground forums and found connections to stolen email credentials, cryptocurrency wallets containing illegally mined coins, mining scripts, and tools used for data theft and remote access.
The suspect has been charged under Ukrainian criminal law and faces up to 15 years in prison, along with a three-year ban from engaging in high-risk activities. The investigation is ongoing and may result in additional charges as new evidence is uncovered. Authorities are urging hosting service users to adopt strong, unique passwords and enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect cloud accounts. They also recommend regularly auditing account activity and revoking access from unknown devices or applications to mitigate potential threats early.
