Washington (AFP)

With a click, they infected hundreds of computers around the world, accumulating more than 100 million dollars in a decade: two Russian hackers, accused of leading a group of hackers related to the services of Kremlin intelligence, were indicted in the United States.

According to US justice, Maxime Iakoubets and Igor Tourachev, head of a cybercriminal group called "Evil Corp", have attacked banks, financial institutions, local authorities, private organizations and small businesses using the phishing technique.

The Moscow-based group has been accused of spreading several malicious software since 2009 - among them "Zeus", "Bugat" and "Dridex" - hidden in e-mail attachments to access the identifiers and bank details of their victims. The hackers then fraudulently transferred the money to bank accounts that belonged to them or that they controlled.

"Zeus" would have been used since 2009 in the United States to extract $ 24,000 from the account of the Order of the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago, an organization in Illinois.

The most recent attacks date back to May 2019.

US authorities consider Maxime Iakoubets as the leader of Evil Corp, "responsible for the management and supervision of malicious activities of the group", and Igor Tourachev as "one of the directors of Iakoubets having control over the Dridex software".

Aged 32, Maxime Iakoubets "is a real 21st century criminal who, by pressing a key and clicking his mouse, has committed computer crimes around the world," said Deputy Justice Minister Brian Benczkowski, at a press conference.

"Every computer intrusion was actually a computer-assisted bank robbery," he added.

- Lamborghini and sumptuous wedding -

Maxime Iakoubets also reportedly collaborated "from 2017" with the Russian intelligence services (FSB) "on projects for the Russian government," said the US Treasury which imposed sanctions against 17 individuals and seven entities related to Evil Corp. .

This "direct aid" provided to the Russian government "is an illustration of the Kremlin's" enlistment "of hackers for its own malicious activities," said the Treasury in a statement.

The network reportedly made more than 300 known victims - people or organizations - in 43 countries, targeting NATO member countries including the United Kingdom, which has participated in the investigation, said an official of the administration US.

Mr. Iakoubets is being prosecuted by the courts of Nebraska and Pennsylvania for crimes committed in several US states. Mr. Tourachev is being prosecuted in Pennsylvania.

In the United Kingdom, Evil Corp has reportedly caused hundreds of millions of pounds of losses since 2014, according to the British Organized Crime Agency (NCA).

In a statement, the NCA points out that Maxime Iakoubets leads "a personalized Lamborghini with a special license plate whose translation is + thief + and spent more than a quarter of a million pounds on his wedding."

The two men were located in Russia and the US State Department offered a $ 5 million reward for any information on Maxime Iakoubets leading to his arrest.

Two people involved in the Nebraska case were arrested in Britain and extradited to the United States, Benczkowski said.

© 2019 AFP