Cops in Germany Claim They’ve ID’d the Mysterious Trickbot Ransomware Kingpin
1 min read
Summary
Vitaly Nikolaevich Kovalev, alleged to be the long-anonymous “Stern” boss of the notorious Russian cybercriminal group Trickbot, has been named by Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) police agency.
The group has been involved in attacks on businesses, schools and hospitals, and is said to have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Trickbot ransomware group first emerged in 2016, and has since overlapped in operations with the Conti gang.
Kovalev was previously jointly sanctioned by the US and UK in early 2023 for his alleged involvement as a senior member in Trickbot, and was charged in the US at the time with hacking linked to bank fraud allegedly committed in 2010.
While the US and UK linked Kovalev to the online handles “ben” and “Bentley,” the 2023 sanctions did not mention a connection to the “Stern” handle.
Cyber security researchers who have tracked Trickbot extensively tell Wired they were unaware of the BKA announcement.
