Malicious Attacks and Actors: An Examination of the Modern Cyber Criminal

Abstract

Like most criminal subsets of society, cyber criminals are going to very when it comes to motivation and capability. Cybercrime talent ranges from entrepreneurial “lone wolf” brute force attackers such as: Nathan Wyatt (who may or may not be) affiliated with “The Dark Overloads” to Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, the creator of the stealthy and sophisticated ZeuS Banking Trojan.Law enforcement’s work on disassembling the Citadel Banking Trojan in 2013, a variant of the ZeuS Baking Trojan brought light multiple tiers of cybercriminals. Dimitry Belorossov a/k/a Rainerfox, was alleged to have operated a Citadel command and control server ultimately controlling 7,000 victim computers. This cybercriminal essentially purchased Citadel – really nothing more than a “user”. Stepping up one level of cyber-crime capability we have the extradition and arrest of Mark Vartanyan, a/k/a Kolypto, wo allegedly developed, improved and maintained the Citadel banking Trojan – a malware developer. Finally, at the top end of the cybercriminal scale we have “Aquabox” the alleged creator of the Citadel Banking. In 2013, it was announced the Citadel Banking Trojan responsible for stealing $500 million. Aquabox is still at large.This journal paper explores cybercriminal actors from a unique perspective: by the type of the attack they conduct and the relationship of the malicious actor to the victim business. Understanding the relationship of the actor to the type of attack inflicted provides an understanding of the motivation of the individual or group. Understanding the motivation of these criminals can provide valuable insight into countering both insider and external threats.