Journalists of the famous American edition wired He spent a year and a half investigating a major data breach involving the Trickbot hacker group, often associated in the West with Russia and even the Kremlin. As a result of the investigations, the name of the alleged leader of the cybercriminals was determined. According to the publication, this is Maxim Galochkin, 41, from Abakan, known by the pseudonym Bentley.
The Wired investigation began in March 2022, shortly after an anonymous user named Trickleaks posted on the social network Twitter (now known as X) correspondence from the internal online chats of several dozen Trickbot members. These correspondence included nearly a quarter of a million messages, as well as hackers’ personal information, such as their real names, photos, social media accounts, passport numbers, phone numbers, and even full residential addresses.
The records also included 2.5 thousand IP addresses of the group members and the number of 500 cryptocurrency wallets. The number of hackers on Trickbot is estimated to be between 100 and 400 people.
Researchers were able to identify the hacker thanks to a video on one of the YouTube channels dedicated to cryptocurrencies, in which the author of the video showed an account logged into the Jabber secure messaging tool. This login and account was previously mentioned in the Bentley correspondence. After that, the researchers analyzed the data of this YouTube account to find out who, when, and on which accounts other accounts used similar logins and passwords. This led researchers to Maxim Galochkin of Abakan, formerly known as Maxim Sipkin.
These findings have been confirmed by independent information security experts such as Hold Security President Alex Holden, Cybernite Intelligence CEO Radoje Vasovic, and Nisos Principal Investigator Vincas Ciziunas, who have worked on Trickbot members for several years.
Journalists also managed to retrieve photos of the hacker, which he posted on GitHub and Gravatar. Wired describes Galochkin as a well-built man with thick dark brown eyebrows and a small dark brown beard. He also has gray long hair. In the actual picture, she poses on the mountainside dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, with a hiking backpack on her shoulders.
Former Russian hackers was attacked Polish Ministry of Defense.