Authorities have raided a few offices in Moscow which were affiliated with film distribution and production company named 25th Floor.
In Russia’s biggest crackdown against cybercrime, authorities have raided several offices in the capital against one of the world’s most notorious financial hacking operations. And as a result, one of the most threatening virus has not resurfaces since the attack. Dyre, a password-stealing software program which is believed to be responsible for at least tens of millions of dollars in losses at financial institutions including Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), is believed to be being controlled from here.
However, so far no Russian authority has taken the responsibility for the crackdown. A spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry’s cybercrime unit said his department was not involved in the case. The FSB, Russia’s main intelligence service, said it had no immediate comment.
The investigation against the deadly virus Dyre is being facilitated by Kaspersky Lab, one of the best cyber-security firm in the world at the moment. A source close to the company has revealed to the Reuters that the company plans to reveal details about this operation at its annual conference for security experts. The conference is set to start from this Sunday which means that the mystery around the case could very well be over within a week. However, Kaspersky has officially declined to comment on the case at the moment.
The CEO of the film company 25th Floor, Nikolay Volchkov has refused to comment on the situation. The company was busy producing a film named Botnet, which is based on a cybercrime thriller. Ilya Sachkov, chief executive of Group-IB, a Moscow-based computer security company, was hired by 25th Floor to advise the Botnet director and writers on the finer points of cybercrime.
Ilya Sachkov revealed how he was initially approached by Volchkov at a security conference in which he offered him the job and told him a little about his idea about the Botnet.
“He asked if we would be interested in consulting with a scriptwriter they would hire in the United States,” Sachkov said.
After the first meeting, the pair met a few times to discuss various ideas about the plot. All these meetings were pretty normal until November when one day Volchkov called Sachkov asking him to meet urgently. Sachkov added that when he met him, he was pretty scared because of the ongoing investigation about cybercrime and he was under a lot of stress.
“He was afraid. His color was totally white,” said Sachkov. “He knows there is an ongoing investigation about cybercrime.”
25th Floor is located in one of the luxurious skyscrapers in Moscow and distributes movies and television shows in Russia as well as other neighboring countries. They also produce some of their own movies and Botnet was supposed to be their biggest project of the all before the crackdown took place. Last year’s distribution slate included “The Runner,” with Nicholas Cage, and this April it is slated to ship “Exposed,” a police corruption drama with Keanu Reeves.
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