Why was a resident of Mari El sentenced for hacking the systems of foreign countries?
Last week, news came out: "A resident of the republic who was engaged in illegal access to information systems of foreign countries was convicted in Mari El." It sounds serious, but we need to figure it out. Fortunately, the verdict passed in May in this case has been published.
It follows that convicted Anton Vikharev downloaded the NLBrute bruteforce program from a certain forum and from March 2021 to November 29, 2023 used it "against servers of foreign countries: the People's Republic of China, the Republic of India, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Indonesia, the United States of America, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Republic of Korea, Kingdom of Thailand. With the help of the computer program "NLBrute" Vikharev A.V. obtained credentials that allow access to servers, IP addresses that he stored as the results of the latter's use of the computer program "NLBrute" on the above laptop (of course, just stored).
At the trial, Vikharev agreed with the charge under Part 1 of Article 273 of the Criminal Code, and admitted guilt. The case was considered in a special order, without a trial. The convict received a year of restriction of freedom (not to change his place of residence, not to leave the Medvedevsky municipal district of Mari El), and his laptop was confiscated.
Among the mitigating circumstances, the court took into account the appearance of confession. "Did you come to surrender yourself?" - you may ask? Well, almost:
"Mitigating punishment Vikhareva A.V. circumstance in the form of a confession (to which the court refers the protocol of the survey of November 29, 2023), the court sees, since under the confession, it should be understood that a person voluntarily reports about the crime committed by him or with his participation. A statement about a crime made by a person in connection with his detention on suspicion of committing this crime cannot be recognized as voluntary.
On November 29, 2023, Vikharev A.V. really turned himself in, informed the FSB officer about the crime he had committed. The confession was made by Vikharev A.V. on November 29, 2023, while the latter did not know what information about his crime was available to law enforcement agencies, a criminal case against Vikharev A.V. was initiated on February 15, 2024, that is, after he wrote a confession, information that Vikharev A.V. was delivered to the FSB on suspicion of committing a crime or an offense is not available, was not detained."
In addition to the list of countries where the attacked systems were located, the international aspect of the case no longer appears in any way.
In the practice of Russian courts, this is not the first case with NLBrute. For example, in 2018, a student from Bashkiria received a 1-year suspended sentence for using a brute-enforcer against the resources of Tatarstan. In 2020, a man serving a sentence in Mordovia used NLBrute (and other programs) in the local network of the Federal Penitentiary Service for Mordovia, for which he received another two years in prison and a fine.
And the alleged creator of NLBrure, Russian citizen Darius Pankov, was arrested near Batumi in October 2022 and extradited to the United States. There, he went on trial on charges of creating NLBrute and selling hacked accounts. Pankov made a deal with the investigation and pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 5 years in prison, and about 360 thousand dollars were confiscated from him, which he received as a result of selling data.
