German BKA names Russian hacker behind GandCrab, REvil.

According to Brian Krebs, an elusive hacker who went by the handle UNKN and ran the early Russian ransomware groups GandCrab and REvil now has a name and a face: 31-year-old Russian Daniil Maksimovich Shchukin, who headed both cybercrime gangs and helped carry out at least 130 acts of computer sabotage and extortion against victims across Germany between 2019 and 2021. Shchukin was named as UNKN in an advisory published by the German Federal Criminal Police (the Bundeskriminalamt, or BKA for short).

The BKA said Shchukin and another Russian, 43-year-old Anatoly Sergeevitsch Kravchuk, extorted nearly 2 million euros across two dozen cyberattacks that caused more than 35 million euros in total economic damage. Read more at KrebsOnSecurity[.]com. The report links the allegations to German authorities’ public briefing about the individuals behind these ransomware operations and the associated financial and operational impact.