The alleged hacker supposedly behind the 2016 DNC email leaks, as well as several other attacks on the US, has been arrested in Prague.
A Russian hacker has been arrested in Prague by Czech police in cooperation with the FBI. The alleged hacker was supposedly involved in several cyberattacks on the US and is specifically suspected of conducting the email leaks that took place at this year’s Democratic National Convention.
According to a statement by the Czech police published Tuesday, the alleged hacker was successfully detained in 12 hours, thanks to the rapid exchange of information with U.S. authorities.
At this time, there isn’t much known about the identity of the alleged hacker. Avast Threat Intelligence Director Michal Salat explains how the hacker could have potentially been tracked down by officials: "Even prestigious hackers make mistakes, and it is sometimes possible for authorities to track them to their original IP address. Since this hacker was supposedly involved in a series of attacks on election database systems in Arizona and Illinois that took place earlier this year, he could have been tracked down through access logs on the servers.”
As it goes with the cases of many clever cybercriminals, this suspect likely went to great lengths to cover his digital tracks. Hackers usually do this through the use of a proxy server. “If there was a proxy used in the attack, officials could have teamed up with the owners of the computers hosting the proxies and gained access to information stored in the proxy servers,” said Salat.
Czech police have stated that Czech judiciary will soon be making a decision whether or not to extradite the suspect’s case to the United States.
