Security News > 2021 > May > Four Eastern Europeans Admit in U.S. Court to Providing Bulletproof Hosting
Four individuals from Eastern Europe have pleaded guilty in a United States court to their roles in a RICO conspiracy.
Between 2008 and 2015, the four individuals provided "Bulletproof hosting" services that threat actors employed for cyberattacks on entities in the United States.
While similar to regular web hosting, bulletproof hosting services allow cybercriminals to store all kinds of malicious content on their servers and make no attempt to interrupt such nefarious activities.
Two Russians, Aleksandr Grichishkin, 34, and Andrei Skvortsov, 34; one Lithuanian, Aleksandr Skorodumov, 33; and one Estonian, Pavel Stassi, 30, admitted in court to founding and operating a bulletproof hosting organization.
The four rented servers, IP addresses, and domains to cybercriminals, providing them with the means to distribute malware, ensnare victim computers into botnets, and steal banking credentials.
Some of the malware families known to have leveraged the group's hosting services included Citadel, SpyEye, Zeus, and the Blackhole Exploit Kit.