Three defendants in the case of the hacker group Lurk released from jail

The court of Yekaterinburg replaced the preventive measures in the form of detention with house arrest for three defendants in the case of the hacker group Lurk, Ildar Gabdulyanov, Alexander Eremin and Vitaly Fedorov. This was reported by lawyer Olga Kezik, who defends  Konstantin Kozlovsky, whom the investigation considers one of the leaders of the hacker group. According to the court decision, Kozlovsky is in a pre-trial detention center, receiving the refusal to satisfy the request of the defense to change his preventive measure.

The detention of hackers from the hacker group Lurk became known on June 1, 2016.  The court accused 22 accomplices of committing a number of offenses: “Computer fraud on an especially large scale committed by a group of persons”, “Organization or participation in a criminal community”, “Creation, use and distribution of malicious computer programs”, “Illegal access to computer information.”

According to the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the hacker group Lurk managed to steal one billion 264 million rubles ($19 million) from commercial companies of banks over several years, and they used large Russian banks to withdraw funds.

Moreover, the accomplices hacked the computer network of Yekaterinburg Koltsovo airport by copying information from the transport hub’s servers.

The defendants have repeatedly stated that they do not recognize the charges against them. In particular, Yekaterinburg resident Konstantin Kozlovsky, whom the investigation considers the organizer of the group, generally stated that he considered himself an agent of the FSB of the Russian Federation.

In addition, Kozlovsky previously claimed responsibility for hacking the servers of the US Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s email correspondence during the 2016 presidential campaign, as well as the servers of US military enterprises.

It is worth noting that recently Kozlovsky reported in a letter to his wife that he had signs of the COVID-19.  However, according to the Press Secretary of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Kozlovsky now has no symptoms of the disease.