The United States Department of State, through its Rewards for Justice program, is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information regarding Maxim Alexandrovich Rudometov, an individual who has been accused of being a developer and administrator of the RedLine information-stealer malware.
RedLine is a piece of malware that enables cybercriminals to steal valuable information from compromised systems, including credentials, cryptocurrency wallets, and other financial information.
In late October 2024, law enforcement agencies in six countries coordinated an operation to disrupt the infrastructure associated with RedLine, a notorious infostealer, and its associated domain, Meta. The operation involved the shutdown of servers, the seizure of domains, and the arrest of two individuals.
At the time of its disruption, RedLine, a malware-as-a-service model, had been utilized by over 20 Russian-speaking cybercrime groups. These groups exploited RedLine to steal the information of millions of users globally and conducted intrusions into critical infrastructure and major organizations.
When RedLine infrastructure was disrupted, the United States announced charges against Rudometov, accusing him of developing the malware and helping manage its infrastructure.
The US has now announced a reward of up to $10 million for information that can lead to the arrest of Rudometov, known online as dendimirror, alinchok, ghackihg, makc1901, navi_ghacking, and bloodzz.fenix.
According to authorities, Rudometov was born in Ukraine and fled to Russia at the start of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
There do not appear to be any recent reports describing attacks involving the RedLine malware, but the wording in the Rewards for Justice announcement suggests that the infostealer may still be active.
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“Anyone with information on foreign government linked associates of Rudometov, or their malicious cyber activities, or foreign government-linked use of RedLine malware, should contact Rewards for Justice via the Tor-based tips-reporting channel,” reads the announcement.
Tips can be submitted through several channels, including Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, and a Tor-based website.
