Meet the Lamborghini-driving, tiger owning Russian playboy hacker, 33, whose Evil Corp firm is behind Garmin attack
THE Russian hacker who heads up the Evil Corp group thought to be behind the Garmin cyberattack is a playboy who drives a personalised Lamborghini and owns a tiger.
Maksim Yakubets, 33, is said to be the head of the cybercriminal group who targeted Garmin devices and demanded $10million to restore their operation.
The Garmin location devices had been down for four days after the cyberattack but are now up and running again although it is not known if the ransom was met.
A cause is yet to be confirmed by Garmin but ZDNet reports several employees claim it is a ransomware attack known as WastedLocker.
The FBI placed a $5m bounty on Yakubets in December 2019 for information leading to his capture.
It is the largest reward being offered for an alleged criminal connected to cybercrime.
In December 2019, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Evil Corp after it caused more than $100m in financial damages in the US banking system.
As a result, if Garmin – a company valued at £18billion - paid the ransom, it could potentially be found to be breaking United States sanctions.
US treasury officials also claim Yakubets provided “direct assistance to the Russian government” by getting confidential documents for the FSB security agency.
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He was also said to be part of a scheme in which Russian intelligence agencies recruit criminals to hack national security targets.