Fraud in the News

Fly gets caught in his own trap

A Ukranian cybercrook who tried to frame Brian Krebs, security journalist and recipient of the ACFE's Guardian Award in 2015, by sending heroin to his house has pleaded guilty to credit card theft and illegally accessing more than 13,000 computers, according to the Naked Security article, Hacker who sent heroin to Brian Krebs pleads guilty, by Lisa Vaas on Jan. 26.

According to the article, Krebs reported that Sergey Vovnenko, 29, entered a guilty plea in Newark, New Jersey, to charges of aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors charged Vovnenko — whose aliases include "Fly," "Flycracker," "Flyck," "Centurion," "Darklife," "MUXACC" and "Stranier" — with operating a network of more than 13,000 hacked computers that he used to harvest credit card numbers and other sensitive information.

According to the article, the summer before his June 2014 arrest, Krebs had secretly gained access to Vovnenko's forum, where he discovered that Vovnenko was raising funds to buy heroin on Silk Road, have it shipped to Krebs' house and then spoof a call from one of his neighbors to tip off the local police when the drugs arrived.