The police department of Spain has recently reported the arrest of a hacker with Russian ethnicity. The hacker/programmer was accused of carrying out hacking on a very huge scale according to the U.S authorities.
According to the police that arrested him, he was working through kelihos botnet, to get personal information from accounts and also planting dangerous softwares. Pyotr Levashov, the hacker, has been held in custody in Barcelona since Friday.
Spanish police explained Pyotr’s method of hacking by telling about his control of a botnet known as kelihos, which he was utilizing to install viruses directly into systems. According to the Spanish police, the FBI was also a main part of the arrest operation carried out against the Russian.
The Russian hacker arrested, has an international arrest warrant issued against him from the United States police department. Yet, the hearing for this arrest will take place in Spanish courts.
Most of the activities that were being carried out by Mr. Levashov included ransomware and data intrusion. Which means blocking access of a user to his own computer and personal data. These kind of hackers demand a ransom for letting go of that data or computer, known as ransomware.
It had been found in conversation with the hacker’s wife, that this arrest had more of a story behind it than just some data hacking. It was done in regard of a Russian hacking attack on the United States presidential campaign this year. She specifically stated that the arrest had something to do with “a virus which appears to have been created by my husband and is linked to [Donald] Trump’s victory”.
On the other hand, the France-Presse news agency claimed through a Washington based source that the arrest of Pyotr does not have anything to do with the US presidential elections. This draws attention to a US secret intelligence report that claimed the involvement of Russian President Vladmir Putin in Trump’s victory.
The accusations were denied boldly by the Russian leader. Donald Trump also made a comment on this issue later on, stating that none of this had any effects on the election results. Mr Levashov has been linked to a famous Russian spam named kingpin. Kingpin is famously known for using alias Peter Severa.
