A Ukrainian man pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to his leading role in two cyberattack schemes that caused tens of millions of dollars in damage and temporarily disabled a Vermont hospital in 2020, the Justice Department said.
Prosecutors said Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov, 37, was the leader of an organization that in May 2009 began infecting thousands of computers at companies with malware and that he helped lead a separate malware program that began around November 2018.
Mr. Penchukov, of Donetsk, pleaded guilty in US District Court in Nebraska to one count of conspiracy to commit an offense in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was arrested in Switzerland in 2022 and extradited to the United States in 2023. Mr. Penchukov’s lawyer could not be found because the court file was sealed.
The Justice Department said Mr. Penchukov helped lead “a far-reaching extortion and conspiracy operation” that installed malware known as Zeus on thousands of business computers starting in 2009. The malware allowed the company to collect information used to online banking accounts, including passwords and personal identification numbers;
Mr. Penchukov and other members of the group then posed as employees of the companies authorized to transfer money from the accounts they targeted, causing millions of dollars in damages, according to the Justice Department.
The money was deposited into the accounts of residents of the United States and other countries known as “money mules,” and those people then sent it to overseas accounts managed by Mr. Penchukov and other members of the group, according to the Justice Department.
Mr. Penchukov was charged with these offenses in 2012 while he was still at large, according to an indictment unsealed in 2014.
On Thursday, Mr. Penchukov also pleaded guilty to his leading role in the separate malware program that ran from at least November 2018 to February 2021, according to federal prosecutors.
The malware, known as IcedID or Bokbot, was installed on computers to collect personal information from victims, including bank account credentials, and the data was used to steal them, according to the Department of Justice. IcedID also allowed cybercriminals to install more malware on infected computers, including ransomware, which is used to lock digital information until the victim pays to release it.
Targets of these ransomware attacks include the University of Vermont Medical Center, which lost more than $30 million, according to the Department of Justice. A 2020 attack on the hospital “also left the medical center unable to provide many critical patient services for more than two weeks, putting patients at risk of death or serious bodily injury,” the Justice Department said.
Employees at the University of Vermont Medical Center told The New York Times in November 2020 that the attack forced the hospital to send away hundreds of cancer patients and required staff to search through written records to find important information.
In September 2023, the medical center’s president, Dr. Stephen Leffler, testified before the House of Representatives and said the hospital had no access to electronic medical records for 28 days because of the attack.
“We didn’t have the Internet,” Dr. Leffler said. “We didn’t have phones. It affected radiological imaging, laboratory results.”
The hospital said in a statement that it was “proud of our team’s work to provide the best possible care while the investigation and recovery was ongoing.”
Mr. Penchukov was also known as Vyacheslav Igoravich Andreev and Tank, an online pseudonym, according to the Justice Department. He was on the FBI’s most wanted list for nearly a decade.
Mr. Penchukov’s sentencing is scheduled for May 9. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each count.
