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A new cybercriminal group called OldGremlin has been targeting Russian companies including banks, industrial enterprises and medical firms with ransomware attacks.

Researchers have said that OldGremlin’s first activities began between late March and early April 2020.  The group took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic in early lures (a common theme for ransomware strains during this time period, sending financial institutions purported recommendations on how to organize a safe working environment

Artem Lifshits is allegedly a part of Project Lakhta/IRA: the ongoing disinformation campaign targeting the upcoming US election.  Lifshits is facing US criminal charges to commit wire fraud as he was accessing cryptocurrency exchange accounts created using stolen US persons’ personal data.

Artem Lifshits Profile

Name:                           Artem Mikhaylovich Lifshits, Artem Lifshits, Artyom Lifshits.

Name in Russian:               Лифшиц Артем Михайлович, Артем Михайлович Лифшиц, Артем Ли

By 12 November 2019, hacker Alexei Burkov was extradited from Israel to the US to face major credit card fraud charges.  Originally arrested in 2015 for his role in Cardplanet, his extradition was delayed several times as the Russian government was fighting against his extradition to the US. Israel subsequently received a competing extradition request from Russia.  Then, Russia arrested and sentenced to prison an Israeli/US citizen and offered Israel to exchange her for Burkov.  This case show

On 1 May 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed “Internet sovereignty” bill.  New requirements to use ISPs to track traffic origin will likely force traffic decryption and support of internal censorship efforts.  In the future, Russia will develop its own DNS system to conduct special Internet controls.  Currently, LinkedIn is banned in Russia.  Russian national payment system, Mir, was developed after several Russian banks were denied services by US-based Visa and MasterCard.  Future st