When you think of famous robbers a few names might come to mind such as John Dillinger,
Jesse James, Baby Face Nelson, and Butch Cassidy.
But the amount of money they stole is nothing compared to a man you’ve probably never
heard of.
His name is Maksim Yakubets and he started and heads the hacker organization Evil Corp.
Let's go on an adventure down the rabbit hole that is Evil Corp and see how they stole hundreds
of millions of dollars from people all around the world.
Imagine you’re a hacker.
It is just a regular day, you’re minding your own business, stealing credit card info
and social security numbers.
Business is good.
You have just decrypted the password algorithm for the servers of a social media website’s
client list.
You now have free reign over their clients info and accounts.
All is going according to plan when suddenly your computer screen goes completely black.
You check the power and connections, everything is fine.
Then you notice a neon green cursor blinking against the black background of the screen.
That's odd, you think.
You hit the escape key.
You try to force a reboot.
Nothing works, it seems as if you have lost control of your own computer.
Then a message begins to type across your screen in green lettering.
“Hello Hacker.
Your work is good.
Would you like to become a part of something bigger?”
Bigger? you think.
“What is this?
Who is playing this joke on me?” you ask yourself.Then, as if the screen were listening,
green letters scroll across the blackness.
No joke.
Your future lies with Evil Corp.
Join us and become richer than your wildest dreams.
Refuse us and your life will be destroyed.
The screen goes completely black for a moment and then your computer screen flashes back
to what you had been previously working on.
The list of the client info you stole remains right where you left it, like nothing had
ever happened.
“What was that?
My future lies with Evil Corp?
What is Evil Corp?
And how did an innocent hacker like me end up on their list?” you say out loud.
More importantly, do you really have any other choice but to join them?
You certainly don’t want your life to be destroyed- do you?
The next night you boot up your computer and wait.
Suddenly the screen goes black and the neon cursor blinks.
I’m in, you type.
You have now been indoctrinated into the cybercrime syndicate of Evil Corp.
A hacker organization led by a man named Maksim Yakubets.
Like all hackers Yakubets goes by a pseudonym.
Online he is known by the alias, Aqua.
He had started Evil Corp almost a decade ago and had been stealing money from businesses
around the world ever since.
All in all cyber crimes over the next five years are estimated to cost businesses between
forty-five to six hundred billion dollars per year.
That’s billions with a B.
Once in the organization you are given their most powerful tool.
Aqua, or Yakubets in the real world, sets you up with two of the most powerful malware
viruses on the market.
The programs are called Zeus and Bugat.
Both can be used to steal bank account information, so that you can hack into an unknowing users’
account and transfer cash to “money mules” in different parts of the world.
The way the malware works is simple yet effective.
A link appears via email or a webpage of the targeted person.
You, the hacker, would monitor the links carefully.
When someone clicks on the link the malware is released onto their computer, which gives
you free reign over their passwords and account numbers.
You are living large with Evil Corp.
You have the power of the evil organisation at your fingertips.
Once the malware is installed a keylogger unlocks and sends you all of the target’s
passwords.
The malware then does something very tricky.
It creates fake banking pages prompting the person to voluntarily put in their credentials,
thus speeding up the process of obtaining their information to a few keystrokes.
You are now able to access all of the target’s accounts and send their funds to the money
mules hired by Evil Corp.
These international money mules then launder the money.
They have been recruited by Evil Corp via work at home job postings through regular
job search websites.
Who’d have thought it’d be so easy?
Evil Corp then gives each mule trivial tasks or busy work for a few days prior to being
asked to handle the money transfers.
They do this to weed out the slow pokes and people not taking the money laundering business
seriously.
To be fair, most of the money mules are misled and are unaware they are doing anything illegal.
You can’t help but sit back and smile as you send millions of dollars of stolen money
to the unknowing employees of Evil Corp.
It is almost time for your payday.
And then something surprising happens.
You see your boss on the news.
He is on a F.B.I. most wanted poster.
Yeah you knew Evil Corp was well, evil, but you had no idea how evil until the report
came out.
Evil Corp had apparently stolen over one hundred million dollars from businesses around the
world.
But here is the thing that makes you question your allegiance to Evil Corp.
They had stolen millions of dollars from schools and religious organizations.
Is this who I am? you think.
You were honestly just in it for the hacking and stealing of rich people’s money.
Kind of like a modern day cyber Robin Hood.
But stealing money from children and nuns?
That is messed up.
To make it worse you then see videos of your bosses at Evil Corp racing down the streets
of Moscow, doing donuts around neighborhoods and parking lots, and even tempting the cops
to chase them.
They are doing these crazy acts in cars that are worth well over one hundred thousand dollars
each.
You learn that Yakubets also works closely with other leaders in the organization, Igor
Turashev and Evgeniy Bogachev.
The latter being the mastermind behind the powerful malware that Evil Corp had given
you at the start of your hacker journey.
All three of the leaders are wanted by the F.B.I.
What is even more astounding is that the cash rewards for information leading to their arrests
are all over three million dollars.
Yakubets himself is worth five million dollars, the largest reward ever offered for a cyber
criminal!
After doing more digging you find that Evgeniy Bogachev, along with other members of Evil
Corp, used the malware not just for stealing money, but for more insidious purposes.
The team of Evil Corp hackers used the tools of the organization to search for classified
information from countries that were of special strategic interest to the Russian government.
Evil Corp was meddling in the stability of the world by stealing classified information
from Turkey and Ukraine on behalf of the Russian government.
This gives you pause.
Maybe you had been going about this all wrong.
You could be a millionaire and a hero just for providing information about Evil Corp
to the Feds.
But what would Evil Corp do to you in return?
There had been stories of people being let go from their jobs, having their identities
stolen, or their lives ruined for getting in the way of Evil Corp.
You definitely do not want any of those things to happen to you.
Besides it is nearly impossible for the United States or any other organization to get close
to Yakubets and the rest of Evil Corp because they are all in Russia.
It goes without saying that the U.S. and Russia have not always seen eye to eye or gotten
along.
But this is even more the case when it comes to Russian hackers.
Whether they work for the government or for an entity like Evil Corp, Russia passionately
protects their cyber hackers.
In fact, Yakubets even obtained a license from the government to work with Russian classified
information in 2018.
That is a lot of trust to put in the hands of a hacker who’s organization has stolen
tens of millions of dollars.
The longer you work for Evil Corp the more sophisticated and evil things get.
The head programmers of the hacker organization modify the malware.
Now when the victim clicks on the malware link, Evil Corp sends them to a modified web
page for their own bank.
This webpage displays a phony customer support number.
So Evil Corp has all of their information and passwords, and when the victim seeks help
they are calling a fake customer support line.
What won’t these guys do?
You slowly start to lighten your workload from Evil Corp.
You know you have to somehow disappear and get away from the villainous organization.
You start to deactivate your accounts, change your usernames, get off the grid.
You still keep tabs on Evil Corp just to make sure you aren’t on their hit list.
Things are quickly getting out of hand at Evil Corp.
Pictures of the leaders of the organization with arms full of cash are being sent across
the internet.
They post a video with a pet lion cub they bought on the black market.
They are untouchable.
The F.B.I. and other international agencies are still looking for ways to bring Yakubets
and the members of Evil Corp to justice.
It does not seem that the organization and their associates will be stopped any time
soon.
Evil Corp is still a functioning entity and still stealing millions of dollars from people
around the world.
You are glad you got out before they do something that could lead to an international conflict.
All you know is that Evil Corp truly lives up to their name.
They are evil.
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