Yesterday Ukrainian hacker Vadym Iermolovych, 29, was sentenced to 30 months in prison by the US court after he was charged with “conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and aggravated identity theft” last year.
In addition to the prison term, Iermolovych was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of some $3 million.
However, Iermolovych was just one of the conspiracy members. Two computer hackers and three securities traders were also involved in the plot. They are Ivan Turchynov, 29, Oleksandr Ieremenko, 25, and Pavel Dubovoy, 34, all of Ukraine, as well as Arkadiy Dubovoy, 52, and Igor Dubovoy, 30, both of Alpharetta, Georgia.
According to the press release, the scheme lasted for almost five years and brought nearly $30 million in illegal profits.
Between February 2010 and August 2015, the total of 150,000 press releases containing confidential financial information were stolen from Marketwired, PR Newswire Association and Business Wire by the law-breakers.
The scheme was simple: based in Ukraine, the hackers accessed the computer networks of the business newswires and shared the stolen releases with traders using overseas computer servers that they controlled.
Hundreds of companies, including Align Technology Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Hewlett Packard, Home Depot, Panera Bread Co., and Verisign Inc, were affected by the plotters.
Source: United States Department of Justice (1, 2).
