U.S., Britain sanction 11 people involved in Russian Trickbot cybercrime group

Sept. 7 (UPI) -- The United States and Britain on Thursday sanctioned 11 people alleged to be involved in the Russia-based Trickbot cybercrime group.

The Department of Justice is also unsealing nine indictments in connection with Trickbot malware and Conti ransomware cyberattacks.

Trickbot, first identified in 2016, was a virus based on the Dyre trojan. The Trickbot trojan infected millions of victim computers in the United States and globally to steal financial data from targets outside Russia, according to the Treasury Department.

The Treasury Department said Trickbot targets include the U.S. government and U.S. companies.

Sanctioned Thursday are:

• Andrey Zhuykov, described as a senior administrator of Trickbot. His online names are Dif and Defender.
• Maksim Galochkin, who allegedly led a group of testers, with responsibilities for development, supervision and implementation of tests. His online screen names are Bentley, Crypt and Volhvb.
• Maksim Rudenskiy, alleged to be team leader of Trickbot coders.
• Mikhail Tsarev was a manager with the group, overseeing human resources and finance, according to the Treasury Deaprtment. He's known online as Mango, Alexander Grachev, Super Misha, Ivanov Mixail, Misha Krutysha and Nikita Andreevich Tsarev.
• Dmitry Putilin was associated with the purchase of Trickbot infrastructure. Dmitry Putilin is also known by the online monikers Grad and Staff.Maksim Khaliullin was an HR manager for the group. He was associated with the purchase of Trickbot infrastructure including procuring Virtual Private Servers.
• Maksim Khaliullin is also known by the online moniker Kagas.
• Sergey Loguntsov, a developer for the Trickbot group.
• Vadym Valiakhmetov worked as a coder for the Trickbot group and is known by the online monikers Weldon, Mentos and Vasm.
• Artem Kurov worked as a coder with development duties in the Trickbot group. Artem Kurov is also known by the online moniker Naned.
• Mikhail Chernov was part of the internal utilities group for Trickbot and is also known by the online moniker Bullet.
• Alexander Mozhaev was part of the admin team responsible for general administrative duties and is also known by the online monikers Green and Rocco.

"In close coordination with our British partners, the United States will continue to leverage our collective tools and authorities to target these malicious cyber activities," Undersecretary of the Treasury Brian E. Nelson said in a statement.