The Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU) announced it had identified and detained the hacker, who went by the name ‘Sanix’ and grabbed attention of the world's cyber security specialists last year for trying to sell a massive database containing 773 million email addresses and 21 million unique passwords.
The Ukrainian authorities arrested the hacker after receiving information that Sanix was likely a Ukrainian citizen and based in the country’s Ivano-Frankivsk region.
The authorities said that 87-gigabyte database Sanix had tried to sell was only a fraction of the stolen data the hacker collected. It is believed that Sanix is the person responsible of initially assembling a number of databases with millions user and password combos known as Collection #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and others.
According to the officials, the hacker had allegedly seven similar databases, which contained personal and financial data from residents in the European Union and North America.
The stolen data included usernames and email passwords, bank card PIN codes, e-wallets of cryptocurrencies, PayPal accounts and information about hacked computers intended to be used as bots in botnets and to launch DDoS attacks.
Following a raid of Sanix’s residence, the SBU officers seized equipment with two terabytes of stolen information, $3,000, and 190,000 Ukrainian hryvnias (approx. $7,100).