Suspected member of Russian Qilin hackers arrested

North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) and State Justice Minister Benjamin Limbach (Greens) provided information on details of the investigations against the Qilin hacker group and the arrest of a member abroad on Wednesday afternoon.

According to the NRW state government, Qilin is considered “one of the best-known and most aggressive hacker networks in the world.” The State Criminal Police Office has “captured one of the leading figures,” said North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) on Wednesday in Düsseldorf. The 28-year-old Russian was arrested in May with the help of the Japanese police in Tokyo.

Last Friday, the suspect was extradited to Germany, Reul said. "The man actually wanted to go on vacation to Japan, but instead of sushi there is now cheese bread in a German prison." Reul spoke of a “historic investigative success” for the LKA.

Investigators from the State Criminal Police Office and the Cybercrime Central and Contact Center (ZAC) had infiltrated, i.e. secretly infiltrated, the hacker group and observed it for months.

As the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" reports, the Japanese police arrested the Russian national and handed him over to German authorities. According to a Japanese newspaper that cited investigators, the man is said to be responsible, among other things, for a ransomware attack on a German logistics company.

“Ransomware is malicious programs that aim to block the computer system or encrypt operating and user data,” informs the Bonn-based Federal Office for Information Security. “A ransom is then demanded for the release.”

In the attack, the Qilin hacker is said to have blackmailed the company by publishing stolen data. He is said to have demanded the equivalent of almost 150,000 euros in Bitcoin to keep it secret.