Secret Service Puts $2.5 Million Bounty On Most Wanted Hacker’s Head

By Davey Winder for Forbes
Thursday, August 29, 2024

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The United States Secret Service has placed a huge bounty of up to $2,500,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a single suspected hacker. The accused cybercriminal, named by the Secret Service as Volodymyr Iuriyovych Kadariya, is a 38 year old Belarusian national charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and two counts of substantive wire fraud.

The Pros And Cons Of Large Hacker Bounties

While admitting that the use of large bounties such as this can be “unprecedentedly successful,” Dr Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at ImmuniWeb and an adjunct professor of cybersecurity at Capital Technology University, also warns of some important drawbacks. Due to geopolitical differences, “former partners in cybercrime and friendly hacking groups increasingly become irreconcilable enemies for ideological reasons,” Kolochenko said, and global cybercrime competition between groups can also lead to informers passing information to law enforcement not only for a slice of the reward but also a bigger slice of the crime market. As a matter of ethics and law, Kolochenko said that the protection of personal data of suspects , and their completely innocent namesakes, is also an important consideration when it comes to drawbacks. “Offering bounty payment only in case of conviction weakens the entire concept,” Kolochenko said, and “the prosecution may decide to drop charges in exchange for collaboration or simply fail to secure a guilty verdict in court for technical or operational nuances.” Read Full Article