A suspected leader of the Zeus cybercrime gang, Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov (aka Tank), was arrested by Swiss police.

Swiss police last month arrested in Geneva Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov (40), also known as Tank, which is one of the leaders of the JabberZeus cybercrime group.

“Vyacheslav “Tank” Penchukov, the accused 40-year-old Ukrainian leader of a prolific cybercriminal group that stole tens of millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses in the United States and Europe, has been arrested in Switzerland, according to multiple sources.” reported the popular investigator Brian Kress.

“Penchukov was named in a 2014 indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice as a top figure in the JabberZeus Crew, a small but potent cybercriminal collective from Ukraine and Russia that attacked victim companies with a powerful, custom-made version of the Zeus banking trojan.”

The man will be extradited to the United States on November 15, according to a statement from the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) in Switzerland.

Penchukov is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list and has been sought for 10 years.

Penchukov opposed the decision of the extradition during a hearing on October 24 and will likely appeal it at the Swiss Criminal Federal Court and the Swiss Supreme Court.

“By order of the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) and based on an extradition request from the USA, a Ukrainian national was arrested in the Canton of Geneva on 23 October 2022 and detained pending extradition,” Swiss prosecutors told BleepingComputer. “The US authorities accuse the prosecuted person of extortion, bank fraud, and identity theft, among other things. During the hearing on 24 October 2022, the person did not consent to his extradition to the USA via a simplified proceeding.” “After completion of the formal extradition procedure, the FOJ has decided to grant his extradition to the USA on 15 November 2022. The decision of the FOJ may be appealed at the Swiss Criminal Federal Court, respectively at the Swiss Supreme Court.”

In 2012, the Ukrainian national Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov was accused of being a member of a cybercrime gang known as JabberZeus Crew. It was a small cybercriminal ring that was targeting SMBs with a custom-made version of the Zeus banking trojan. At the time, DoJ accused Penchukov of coordinating the exchange of stolen banking credentials and money mules and received alerts once a bank account had been compromised.

Krebs reported that Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, noted in 2014 that Tank told co-conspirators in a JabberZeus chat on July 22, 2009 that his daughter, Miloslava, was and told him Miloslava birth weight.

Warner explained that Tank was identified by searching Ukrainian birth records for the only girl named Miloslava born on that day with a specific birth weight.

Krebs pointed out that Penchukov was able to evade prosecution by Ukrainian authorities for many years due to his political connections. The late son of former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych would serve as godfather to Tank’s daughter Miloslava.

Two other members of the gang, Yevhen Kulibaba and Yuriy Konovalenko, were arrested in 2014 and pleaded guilty. Both were sentenced to two years and ten months of incarceration in May 2015 followed by a supervised release of 1 year.

Another member of the JabberZeus gang, Maksim Yakubets (aka “Aqua”) is currently wanted by the FBI, which is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Zeus)

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Russia launched more missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Thursday and its forces pressed attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, reinforced by troops pulled from Kherson city in the south which Kyiv recaptured last week.

NATO and Poland concluded that a missile that crashed in Poland on Tuesday, killing two people, was probably a stray fired by Ukraine’s air defences. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy contested this view in a rare public disagreement with his Western allies.

As the winter’s first snow fell in Kyiv, authorities said they were working hard to restore power nationwide after Russia earlier this week unleashed what Ukraine said was the most intense bombardment of civilian infrastructure of the nine-month war.

Explosions were heard again on Thursday morning in several parts of Ukraine, including the southern port of Odesa, the capital Kyiv and the central city of Dnipro, and civilians were urged to take shelter as air raid warnings were issued.

Local officials said two people were killed in a missile attack overnight on the southeastern region of Zaporhizhzhia, three were wounded in an attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv and three were hurt in Odesa.

“Missiles are flying over Kyiv right now,” Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal as saying at a conference. “Now they are bombing our gas production, they are bombing our enterprises in Dnipro and Yuzhmash (missile factory).”

On a brighter note, Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said agreement had been reached on extending by 120 days a deal that allows for the export of food and fertilisers from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports via a protected sea transit corridor.

The Black Sea grain initiative, first agreed in July, has helped to alleviate global food shortages and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed Thursday’s announcement.

NATO ambassadors held emergency talks on Wednesday to respond to Tuesday’s blast at a grain facility in Poland, near the Ukrainian border, the war’s first deadly extension into the territory of the Western alliance.

“From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said, however.

“It is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defence.”

Russia and Ukraine both use the Soviet-era missile.

Nevertheless, NATO’s chief said Russia, not Ukraine, was still to blame for starting the war with its February invasion and launching scores of missiles on Tuesday that triggered Ukrainian defences.

“This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.

Stoltenberg also said the missile was likely to have originated from Ukrainian air defence.

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy demurred, saying, “I have no doubt that it was not our missile”, Ukrainian media said on Wednesday. He said he based his conclusion on reports from Ukraine’s military which he “cannot but trust”.

U.S. President Joe Biden disputed Zelenskiy’s assertion that the missile was not Ukrainian in comments to reporters at the White House on Thursday following his return from a trip to Asia. “That’s not the evidence,” Biden said.

Moscow had denied responsibility, and Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the “mayhem” around accusations of Russian involvement in the missile were “part of a systematic anti-Russian campaign by the West”.

Following the latest wave of Russian missile attacks, Zelenskiy said late on Wednesday that technicians were working nonstop to restore electricity.

“We are talking about millions of customers. We are doing everything we can to bring back power. Both generation and supply,” he said.

Fighting was heavy in the eastern Donetsk region, including the towns of Pavlivka, Vuhledar, Maryianka and Bakhmut, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in an online video.

Ukrainian forces repelled attacks on the Donetsk towns of Avdiivka and Bilohorivka, Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhadnov said in comments posted on YouTube.

Moscow’s forces retreated from the southern city of Kherson last week after a Ukrainian counteroffensive. It was the only regional capital Russia had captured since its Feb. 24 invasion, and the pullback was the third major Russian retreat of the war.

Investigators in the Kherson region uncovered 63 bodies bearing signs of torture after Russian forces left the area, Ukraine’s interior minister was quoted as saying on Thursday.

Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted the minister, Denys Monastyrsky, as telling national television: “The search has only just started, so many more dungeons and burial places will be uncovered.”

Russia denies its troops target civilians or have committed atrocities. Mass burial sites have been found in other parts previously occupied by Russian troops, including some with civilian bodies showing signs of torture.

Redeployed Russian forces have also gone on the attack in the southern Zaporizhzhia region as well as in the east, and may also be planning to launch another offensive in Kharkiv in the north, where they were pushed back by Ukraine earlier in the conflict, Arestovych said.

Vladimir Rogod, a Russian-installed official in the Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia, said a Ukrainian missile struck a village there, killing two people and wounding nine.

The top U.S. general, Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played down chances of any outright military victory for Kyiv in the near term, saying Russia still had significant combat power in Ukraine despite setbacks.

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Leaders gathering for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Thailand should “rise above differences”, the host said on Thursday, after a series of summits in the region were dominated by geopolitical tension over the war in Ukraine.

Thailand’s Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said the meeting of the 21-member bloc, which starts Friday, “takes place at a pivotal juncture” with the world facing multiple risks.

“Cancel mentality… permeates every conversation and action, (and) makes any compromise appear impossible,” he said in a statement after a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers ahead of the main summit.

“That’s why APEC this year must rise above these challenges and deliver hope to the world at large.”

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha at a pre-summit business event said the focus of meetings would be “new trade and investment narratives… the need to reconnect supply chains and travel, and the global sustainability agenda”.

On the APEC sidelines, Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to have talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later in the day. Xi had been due to give an address to a business forum but cancelled, organisers said.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are among those also attending the main meeting, while French President Emmanuel Macron is a special guest.

The APEC meeting comes on the heels of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Bali where countries unanimously adopted a declaration saying most members condemned the war in Ukraine, but that also acknowledged some countries saw the conflict differently.

Host Indonesia said the Ukraine war had been the most contentious issue.

The war also figured prominently at the East Asia Summit and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summits in Cambodia at the weekend, as did the crisis in Myanmar, whose ruling generals were barred from attending due to failure to follow a peace process.

On Thursday, as leaders prepared for the APEC meeting, the junta in neighbouring Myanmar announced it would free 5,774 political prisoners, among them a Japanese filmmaker, a former British ambassador and an Australian economist and former adviser to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi,

Activists and the military’s opponents welcomed the amnesty, but warned the world not to be tricked by the junta, which they said was using people as bargaining chips.

Tensions also simmered elsewhere at the G20 summit in Bali when Xi criticised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in person over alleged leaks of their closed-door meeting, a rare public display of annoyance by the Chinese leader.

Russia is a member of both G20 and APEC but President Vladimir Putin has stayed away. First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov will stand in for him at APEC.

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Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov of Ukraine summed up the outcome of the seventh meeting in the “Ramstein” format, which took place on Nov. 16 and was hosted virtually at the Pentagon.

He wrote about this on Twitter, Ukrinform reports.

“The free world is with us until we win. Ukraine’s strength now: increased economic potential, better training of UAarmy, modern logistics,” he wrote.

Reznikov also thanked Ukraine’s partners for their support and “new initiatives.”

The Minister noted that he expects “great results” before the next meeting in Germany.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin opened the seventh meeting in the Ramstein format on support to Ukraine. He said that the members of the group would maintain the pace of support for Kyiv throughout the winter, so that Ukraine could continue to consolidate its successes and seize the initiative on the battlefield.

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Republicans on Wednesday, Nov. 16, took control of the US House of Representatives from Democrats, networks said, narrowly securing a legislative base to oppose President Joe Biden’s agenda for the final two years of his term –- and leaving power in Congress split.

The slim Republican majority in the lower house of the US legislature will be far smaller than the party had been banking on, and Republicans also failed to take control of the Senate in a historically weak performance in the November 8 midterm elections.

NBC and CNN projected the victory for Republicans with at least 218 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives — the magic number needed to take control. This came a week after millions of Americans went to the polls for the midterms, which typically deliver a rejection of the party in the White House.

Biden congratulated top House Republican Kevin McCarthy “on Republicans winning the House majority” and added that he was “ready to work with House Republicans to deliver results for working families.”

Last week’s vote, he said, was “a strong rejection of election deniers, political violence and intimidation” and demonstrated “the strength and resilience of American democracy.”

Tweeting soon after the projection was called, McCarthy said that “Americans are ready for a new direction, and House Republicans are ready to deliver.”

The news came one day after former president Donald Trump — who loomed large during the election cycle, and whose endorsement appears to have doomed some of his party’s candidates — announced a new run for the White House.

With inflation surging and Biden’s popularity ratings cratering, Republicans had hoped to see a “red wave” wash over America, giving them control of both houses and hence an effective block over most of Biden’s legislative plans.

But instead, Democratic voters — galvanized by the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights and wary of Trump-endorsed candidates who openly rejected the result of the 2020 presidential election — turned out in force.

And Republicans lost ground with candidates rejected by moderate voters as too extreme.

“In the next Congress, House Democrats will continue to play a leading role in supporting President Biden’s agenda — – with strong leverage over a scant Republican majority,” House speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

– ‘Officially flipped’ –

Biden’s party flipped a key Senate seat in Pennsylvania and held onto two more in battleground states Arizona and Nevada, giving them an unassailable majority in the upper chamber with 50 seats plus Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.

A Senate runoff election in Georgia set for next month could see the Democrats ultimately improve their majority in the upper house.

The Senate oversees the confirmation of federal judges and cabinet members, and having the 100-seat body in his corner will be a major boon for Biden.

Meanwhile on Tuesday McCarthy won his party’s leadership vote by secret ballot, putting him in prime position to be the next speaker, replacing Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

The 57-year-old congressman from California, a senior member of House Republican leadership since 2014, fended off a challenge from Andy Biggs, a member of the influential far-right Freedom Caucus.

But potential far-right defections could yet complicate his path when the full chamber votes in January.

McCarthy now begins what is expected to be a grueling campaign to win the consequential floor vote on Jan. 3, when the House of Representatives’ 435 newly elected members — Democrats and Republicans — choose their speaker, the third most important US political position after president and vice president.

McCarthy has raised eyebrows by saying that his party might not grant a “blank check” for continued multi-billion dollar US funding for Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion.

The post Republicans Take Control of US House, Congress Split: Projections appeared first on Kyiv Post.

Rates higher; borrowings larger

On Nov. 15, the Ministry of Finance again raised interest rates on UAH bills and attracted a total of UAH5bn (US$137m), mostly in local currency.

FX-denominated paper received the largest number of bids, but the total volume of demand and proceeds was the smallest of the yesterday’s auction, just a total of US$7.9m at a rate of 4.25% for five months. These are the same conditions as two weeks ago, but the volume was almost five times smaller.

Local-currency bills played the leading role in attracting money yesterday. They brought UAH4.7bn (US$129m) to the budget, even though the Ministry of Finance narrowed the offer to two military bonds and one issue of ordinary government bonds, two of which with interest rates increased by 50bp.

The most significant amount of funds the MoF raised through ordinary securities was the one maturing in 1.5 years, with the interest rate increased to 19%. Five bids brought UAH3.3bn (US$89m) to the budget. These bills were not in great demand in previous weeks. Still, on Nov. 15, a rather large player with a large volume in the bid participated in the auction because the minimum rate of 18.5% did not affect the weighted average rate; it was also 19%, like the maximum.

Also, the MoF raised the interest rate on five-month paper to 14%, and borrowed nearly UAH1.2bn (US$31m). Here, too, the minimum rate did not affect the weighted average rate, so the size of demand in the bid with the maximum rate could be the reason that the Ministry of Finance took another step to meet the demand.

The rate for 10-month bills stayed the same, which is now the same as for bills with 5-month maturity. So, now the Ministry of Finance will either have to replace this issue or revise the rate if there are relevant bids.

Therefore, the Ministry of Finance reacted to the greater demand for higher rates and agreed to further upward movement. Nevertheless, military bonds offer significantly lower rates than ordinary bills. The demand shift toward ordinary paper continues and increases its advantage.

RESEARCH TEAM: Taras Kotovych

Read the full report here.

 

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Humiliated by Russia’s battlefield routs, Vladimir Putin faces risky choices: dig in for a long fight, escalate — and risk seeing the conflict spiral out of control — or seek a face-saving path to talks that Ukraine has so far dismissed.

The decision will depend largely on how the war progresses as winter settles in, with analysts warning of a slow grind that could see further collateral damage like the Ukrainian missile that appears to have accidently struck Poland on Tuesday.

For Kyiv, the recent Russian retreat from Kherson was its third victory since the invasion was launched in February, after Russia’s failure to take the capital and the recovery of Kharkiv in a surprise counter-offensive last September.

Their will to fight bolstered, Ukrainians are now eyeing other Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized in 2014 and which President Volodymyr Zelensky has said must be recovered for the war to end.

But a barrage of Russian missiles targeting civilian infrastructure across Ukraine on Tuesday shows the price will be high if Putin deems talks out of the question for now.

“Historically, Russian authorities never negotiate from a position of weakness,” said Cyrille Bret, a researcher at the Paris-based Jacques Delors Institute, a think-tank.

And with the recent call for 300,000 men to mobilise, “they’re thinking about how they can change the balance of force, with military operations but also diplomatic and economic or even covert initiatives,” he said.

A war of attrition punctuated by Russian airstrikes, for example, could sap Ukrainians’ resolve this winter, when reduced daylight will limit their capacity to conduct operations to claw back territory held by Russia in the east.

“The Russians are in a better state than when they arrived in February in the country, when they definitely were ill-prepared,” a senior Western official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

“We’re seeing a greater kind of coherence of the overall military approach.”

– Costly calculations –

Further battlefield successes for Ukraine could also increase the pressure for a negotiated settlement, with Ukraine’s Western allies worried about Zelensky’s aim of retaking Crimea, analysts said.

Despite Ukraine’s claim, many residents on the peninsula want to remain part of Russia, which needs a base of operations for its Black Sea fleet.

“This is an existential issue for the Russian navy and for Russians themselves,” said William Alberque of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“Having leverage on Crimea, the deal might be to freeze the battle line here,” he said, noting that if Crimea is taken off the table, “you take the pressure off Russia.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that after talks with fellow G20 leaders in Bali, “the road to negotiations is not incompatible with [Ukraine’s] resistance… there is probably today a larger consensus on this position.”

Macron has said he plans to speak with Putin in the coming days, not least to hammer home a G20 warning to avoid any nuclear escalation of the conflict.

Some analysts also see a shifting stance by the US, whose military support is critical for Kyiv to keep fighting.

Last week, top US general Mark Milley said that military victory may not be possible in the war, saying there is “a window of opportunity for negotiation.”

Also last week, CIA director William Burns met Russian spy chief Sergei Naryshkin in Ankara, the highest level face-to-face meeting of US and Russian officials since the beginning of the war.

– To the table? –

Negotiations are unlikely, however, as long as the military situation remains in flux, with both sides believing they can still gain the upper hand.

“It is absolutely not in Ukraine’s interest to have fixed battle lines, they want to make gains through the winter in order to be in a much stronger positions next spring,” Alberque said.

Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center, said nonetheless that US President Joe Biden and his administration “must think through the right timing to push for negotiations and at what point the costs of continuing to fight will outweigh the benefits.”

She noted the three scenarios in coming months that could create conditions for talks: further Ukraine advances, a revived Russian assault, or a stalemate.

“What connects all three is that, in each, battlefield outcomes point to a relative consensus around which a settlement could be built,” she wrote in Foreign Affairs in late October.

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Ukraine has received over 100 tons of aid from Western allies to support the country’s energy sector. The Ministry of Energy has now distributed the various equipment to energy companies.

On Nov. 15, the Ministry of Energy’s working group on the organization of humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian energy sector confirmed the distribution of more than 100 tons of various energy equipment, machinery, and materials.

In particular, 73 generators delivered from the U.K. and about 80 tons of equipment and materials provided by Ireland, Estonia, Germany, France, Norway, Switzerland, and Austria are being supplied according to the needs of several energy companies from the regions most affected by Russian armed aggression.

“We appreciate the assistance received from our international partners. At the same time, Ukraine’s needs for equipment and materials will increase significantly following massive shelling of energy infrastructure since the beginning of the war. We count on the support of our partners and friends and assistance in obtaining equipment and spare parts, which are critically necessary for the prompt restoration of energy supply to Ukrainian citizens,” said Farid Safarov, chairman of the working group and deputy minister of energy.

At the same time, the Minister of Energy of Ukraine, Herman Halushchenko, held an extraordinary meeting of the High-Level International Energy Advisory Council. The minister appealed to international partners with a request to provide Ukraine with additional equipment that will allow for rapid repairs and to restore the stable operation of Ukraine’s power system.

On Nov. 15, Russia fired around 100 missiles at the territory of Ukraine, mainly at critical infrastructure facilities. Halushchenko described it as the largest single attack on Ukraine’s energy system since the beginning of the full-scale war.

As a result of the strikes, there were massive power outages and emergency blackouts across the country. There is also a resulting power shortage in Moldova, while one of the power lines providing electricity from Romania was automatically disconnected.

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Iran’s foreign minister accused Israel and Western intelligence services of planning to divide Iran and start a civil war on Thursday, a day after seven people were killed in the southwestern city of Izeh in what state media presented as a “terrorist attack”.

“Various security services, Israel and some Western politicians who have made plans for civil war, destruction and the disintegration of Iran, should know that Iran is not Libya or Sudan,” Hossein Amirabdollahian tweeted, adding that Iranians would not fall for such plans.