US charges six Russians and one Ukrainian over Trickbot botnet

Six Russians and one Ukrainian were charged in the Trickbot case.

Six Russians and one Ukrainian have been charged in the case of the hacking group that controlled Trickbot malware and has infected more than a million computers since 2016. The matter is described in the document from the Northern District of Ohio court.

Among the defendants are Russian citizen Vladimir Dunaev, extradited on October 20 to the United States from South Korea, and Russian national Alla Vitte, who the DOJ also identifies as a Latvian citizen. The names of the other defendants in the document are redacted.

The DOJ identifies Dunaev and Vitte as the developers of malware used for Trickbot.

Trickbot has long been one of the most popular trojans used by criminals to infiltrate systems and to steal data, conduct covert mining and deploy ransomware.

According to investigators, the Trickbot group operated in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Suriname. The operators of the botnet are also suspected of disrupting the electoral process in the United States.

In 2020, an international group of specialists carried out an operation to neutralize Trickbot.

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