The U.S. Department of State has announced a monetary reward for any information about two Ukrainian hackers or anything that will help arrest them. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised a monetary reward of up to $2 million, one million for each.
U.S. law enforcement officers are looking for Ukrainian citizens Artem Viacheslavovich Radchenko and Oleksandr Vitalyevich Ieremenko, who, according to the investigation, are members of a transnational organized criminal group and are involved in cybercrimes.
The Internet Protocol
Ieremenko successfully hacked into the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) computer networks and extracted valuable data regarding the financial earnings of publicly traded companies.
The U.S Department of State site said that Radchenko and Ieremenko's scheme focused on stealing annual, quarterly, and current reports of publicly traded companies before the reports were disseminated. Many of the stolen reports contained material non-public information concerning, among other things, the earnings of the companies. Radchenko and Ieremenko sought to illegally profit from the scheme by selling access to the non-public information contained in these "yet-to-be" disclosed reports and trading in the companies' securities before the investing public learned the same information.
The Internet Protocol
On January 15, 2019, a federal grand jury in the Northern District of New Jersey charged Radchenko and Ieremenko with securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, computer fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, and computer fraud in a 16-count unsealed indictment.
The award for assistance in catching Ukrainian hackers was announced within the framework of a special TOCRP program (Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program).
TOCRP, together with the Narcotics Rewards Program, has brought more than 75 transnational criminals to justice since these programs began. The Department of State has paid more than $130 million in rewards.
