ST. CHARLES, Mo. (KMOX) - A federal grand jury indicted two Iranian internationals for conspiracy to commit wire fraud by attacking a business in St. Charles, Missouri.
This is the first "cryptojacking" case to be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Missouri. Authorities say the suspects hacked a victim's device and used it to generate or “mine” cryptocurrency.
The suspects, Danial Jeloudar and Saeeid Safaei, are believed to be living abroad and are not currently in custody.
According to court documents, both defendants conspired to victimize a technology company in St. Charles by fraudulently gaining access and using the company’s account on a cloud service. By misrepresenting themselves through the victim company’s account, the defendants fraudulently authorized the cloud service provider to build and install at least five new computer servers in the cloud. The purpose of the new servers was to run and operate software programs to generate cryptocurrency.
The victims became aware of the hack after receiving a bill of more than $760,000 from the cloud service provider related to the use of fraudulent servers.
Authorities say cryptojacking is when cyber criminals take control of a victim's device and uses it along with a virtual master ledger, which "uses complicated algorithms to verify and record cryptocurrency transactions."
Here's how authorities say you can protect yourself against cryptojacking:
• Two-step authentication will make it harder for criminals to gain access to your online accounts
• Monitor log-in history to detect suspicious activity early
• Audit cloud storage to verify contents.
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