[Imagesource: National Crime Agency/Royaume-Uni]

When you picture cybercriminals, the first image that comes to mind is probably a hooded figure in a dark room tapping away at a computer keyboard.

You certainly don’t picture a Russian playboy doing doughnuts in traffic in a custom Lamborghini, with a personalised number plate reading ‘Thief’.

The playboy in question is Maksim Yakubets, the leader of ‘Evil Corp’, one of the most notorious cybercrime syndicates in the world.

Yakubets is widely considered the world’s biggest cybercriminal, with an FBI bounty of $5 million on his head.

Image: FBI

A video montage shows him doing burnouts and messing around with electronics. It also features a surprising appearance from a lion cub:

Members of Evil Corp are living a lavish lifestyle, funded by the life savings of their victims.

If Maksim Yakubets, who used the online identity of ‘Aqua’, ever leaves the safety of Russia he will be arrested and extradited to the US. pic.twitter.com/BdoaxZrFBK

— National Crime Agency (NCA) (@NCA_UK) December 5, 2019

He seems to be living large while at large.

‘Evil Corp’ and Yakubets (below), according to The Telegraph, is back in the spotlight, and news, after it was revealed that it was behind a recent cyber-attack on Garmin that encrypted some of its systems.

For the past five days, exercise enthusiasts have been up in arms. Millions of cyclists and runners have been unable to record or analyse their fitness data.

“I’ve not been able to sync my bike ride and I am fuming,” wrote one Garmin user on Twitter. “My run app didn’t calculate mileage this morning. Just the time. So frustrating,” wrote another.

It wasn’t just fitness fanatics struggling with the outages. More importantly, scores of pilots were blocked from accessing navigation systems, which also run on Garmin systems.

Okay, the second one is far more concerning. At the same time, don’t separate a cyclist from their fitness data – their very reason for existence will be shattered.

Garmin is working hard to resolve the fallout from the attack.

“We immediately began to assess the nature of the attack and started remediation,” the company said.

Image: FBI

“We have no indication that any customer data, including payment information from Garmin Pay, was accessed, lost or stolen. Additionally, the functionality of Garmin products was not affected, other than the ability to access online services.”

Systems should be restored in the coming days. If you’re one of those who lost out on days of fitness data tracking, you can find out more, here.

The group is demanding $10 million from Garmin in ransom. It’s unclear whether Garmin has paid the ransom, but it doesn’t expect any impact on its operations or financial stability.

Meanwhile, Yakubets is still evading arrest. He and his team have been responsible for “two of the worst computer hacking and bank fraud schemes of the past decade”.

In one of those schemes, the group attempted to steal $220m, although ultimately ended up with $70m. Evil Corp has been linked to many other cyber attacks, with a senior official with the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) last year saying customers of 300 companies were targeted in 43 different countries.

In Britain alone, hundreds of millions of pounds were said to have been stolen by the group.

Experts believe that ‘Evil Corp’ was responsible for the Garmin attack because the breach was achieved through its signature ransomware called WastedLocker.

And, the FBI hunt continues…

[source:telegraph]