Russia Arrests 50 In Rare Cybercrime Crackdown

In what is said to be Russia’s biggest crackdown on financial hackers, police there have arrested 50 people allegedly responsible for cybercrimes involving more than 3 billion rubles ($45 million), according to a Bloomberg report.

The detainees belong to a gang that waged 18 attacks on Russian financial entities and state agencies in the past year using malware to breach computers, says the country’s Interior Ministry adding that cops prevented a further theft of 2.8 billion rubles.

Russian cybercrime is notoriously associated with cyberattacks on financial institutions around the globe, including the Carbanak group that stole some $1 billion from banks in 30 countries, according to Kaspersky Lab. 

Russia is now “tightening its grip on financial hacking,” according to Kaspersky Lab, which assisted the police in the crackdown.

Read more at Bloomberg Technology.