Justice granted as botnet hacker gets jailed – Crimes do not pay

July 11, 2020
botnet hacker operator malware satori iot

Cybercrime Botnet Hacker Busted

With collaborative effort from the private sectors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States of America, perpetrators behind ‘Satori’ IoT botnet has been sentenced by the court to serve 13 months in federal prison. As written on the court documents, the verdict was served to Kenneth Currin Schuchman 22 years old from Vancouver, his accomplice Aaron Sterritt (20 years old – UK National is known as Vamp or Viktor) and Logan Shwydiuk (31 years old from Canada known as Drake).

The group began its malicious activity back in 2017. It became popular in the Cybercrime community for its multiple success in performing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) infiltration against different online services and targets around the globe.

 

The evolution of the Botnet ‘Satori.’

With additional sophisticated codes to the famous Mirai botnet malware program. they were able to devise a more lethal IoT botnet malware named ‘Satori.’ This botnet caught the Cybersecurity expert’s attention after it infiltrated 200,000 IP addresses in just 12 hours in Huawei HG532 devices. In addition to this infection was successful exploitation of a zero-day attacked to the targeted devices by which it paved the way for the group to be famous. Gathered resources are said to be ‘for rent’ by the group to different entities in the Cyberworld, especially on the dark web for the renter’s disposal. Some of which are used for reconnaissance and espionage where the group able to profit more.

Unfortunately, due to the known fiasco, the FBI’s investigator was able to link the malware attack to an online hacker – Nexus Zeta, which turned out to be Kenneth Currin Schuchman. Pieces of evidence gathered put Kenneth and his group a toll after following the attacker’s footprints and cross-referencing it to their online activities.

 

Crime Does Not Pay

Their apprehension is a perfect example that crime does not pay. Though cybercriminals heed through aliases, persistent law enforcers are always there to unmask them. We must all be vigilant and be cautious in dealing with technology as with their promised advantages comes with disadvantages. It is like fighting fire with fire. In this case, technology vs. technology, though time constraints, all evil deeds will face harmful consequences in the end as what happened to these botnet operators.

As stipulated on the sentence, Kenneth Currin Schuchman, pleaded guilty in a count of fraud in violation of the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act before Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess. An addition on its verdict is to serve a term of 18 months of rehabilitation for drug dependency and a 3-year mandatory probationary parole upon release from prison.

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