The U.S. State Department and FBI on Tuesday announced a $3 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Russian national Evgeniy Bogachev, the highest bounty U.S. authorities have ever offered in a cyber case. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also issued a "Wanted" poster for Bogachev, who is charged in the United States with running a computer attack network called GameOver Zeus that allegedly stole more than $100 million from online bank accounts.
Bogachev has been charged by federal authorities in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering in connection with his alleged role as administrator of GameOver Zeus. He also faces federal bank fraud conspiracy charges in Omaha, Nebraska related to his alleged involvement in an earlier variant of Zeus malware known as "Jabber Zeus." The Justice Department announced in June that authorities had shut down the servers the cybercriminals used to control infected machines. Bureau officials said they believed Bogachev was still in Russia.
"This was a worldwide infection, but it also had law enforcement worldwide working to combat it and bring to justice the criminal organization behind it,"Joseph Demarest, head of the FBI's cyber crime division, said in a statement. The agency is aware of 60 different cyber threat groups linked to nation-states, Demarest said. He did not identify which countries were believed to be behind these groups.
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