Brian Krebs, author of the Krebs on Security blog, has made a name for himself by exposing some of the most dangerous characters in the cybercrime underworld. And he has paid a price for doing so, including being the target of a SWAT attack.
Several years ago, Krebs also incurred the wrath of a Ukrainian hacker, Sergey Vovnenko, who responded to the unwanted publicity Krebs provided him by trying to frame the journalist for heroin possession.
Krebs writes on his blog:
When I first became acquainted with Vovnenko in 2013, I knew him only by his many hacker names, including “Fly” and “Flycracker,” among others. At the time, Fly was the administrator of the fraud forum “thecc[dot]bz,” an exclusive and closely guarded Russian language board dedicated to financial fraud and identity theft.
After I secretly gained access to his forum, I learned he’d hatched a plot to have heroin sent to my home and to have one of his forum lackeys call the police when the drugs arrived.
I explained this whole ordeal in great detail last fall, when Vovnenko initially was extradited from Italy to face charges here in the United States. In short, the antics didn’t end when I foiled his plot to get me arrested for drug possession, and those antics likely contributed to his arrest and to this guilty plea.
Vovnenko has pleaded guilty to a number of cybercrimes and is facing a mandatory minimum of two years behind bars – it could be longer – as well as fines.
Krebs will go on doing what he does, which is provide some of the best security journalism – and practical advice — found anywhere on the Internet. By doing so he will undoubtedly continue to put himself at risk of retribution by the criminal class. The public should be thankful for his work.
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