Kristina Vladimirovna Svechinskaya
| |
|---|---|
| Born | (1989-02-16) February 16, 1989 (age 35) |
| Occupation | money mule |
Kristina Vladimirovna Svechinskaya (Russian: Кристина Владимировна Свечинская, born February 16, 1989) is a former Russian money mule hacker. While studying at New York University, in 2010 she was accused of a plot to defraud British and U.S. banks and usage of false passports. According to charges, Svechinskaya used a Zeus Trojan horse to attack thousands of bank accounts and opened at least five accounts in Bank of America and Wachovia,[1] which received $35,000 (£22,000) of stolen money. It is estimated that with nine other people, Svechinskaya had skimmed $3 million in total.[2] The upcoming Russian film Botnet is partially based on Svechinskaya's story.[3]
Fluent in English, Svechinskaya originally studied at Stavropol State University.[4] According to Svechinskaya's mother, after the death of Kristina's father their family was living on a 12,000 ruble (US$400 at the time) salary. In her third year, Kristina chose the Work & Travel program and in the summer of 2010 arrived in Massachusetts,[4] where she started to work in a fast food outlet.
Her earnings were small and she moved to New York and worked as a hacker's money mule.[4] Svechinskaya was offered an 8–10% share of taken money.[5] Her sentence was expected to be announced in June 2011,[6] but Svechinskaya signed a personal recognizance bond[6] and was released under $25,000 bail.[7] In 2016, Svechinskaya made a YouTube presentation of SmartFlash, marketed as secure cloud-based USB flash drive to store unlimited amount of data.[8]
 | This Russian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
