Hacker from Ukraine sold personal data of US citizens for cryptocurrency

Vitaliy Chichasov, a Ukrainian currently residing in the United States, has confessed to illegally using software and administering a marketplace for the unauthorized sale of personal data of Americans.

Mr. Chichasov was the administrator of the SSNDOB Marketplace, a series of websites that sold personal information of US citizens, including their full names, dates of birth, and social security numbers. During its operation, the SSNDOB managed to sell the data of 24 million people, making a profit of more than $ 19 million. After the detention of the Ukrainian, law enforcement officers seized the marketplace domains.

«Stolen social security numbers can be used to commit a variety of fraud, including tax fraud, unemployment benefit fraud, loan fraud, credit card fraud, and more,» the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

Court documents show that the administrators advertised the SSNDOB through ads they created on various darknet sites. To avoid a significant digital footprint, the hackers accepted payment only in cryptocurrency and placed servers for the site in strategically chosen locations around the world.

Chichasov was arrested in March 2022 when he tried to enter Hungary and then extradited to the United States in July of the same year. Along with the guilty plea, the Ukrainian also agreed to hand over to law enforcement the domains «blackjob.biz», «ssndob.club» and «ssndob.vip», which were used to commit the crimes. The second SSNDOB administrator, Sergei Pugach, was also arrested in May 2022.

The US authorities were able to detain the hackers thanks to an investigation conducted by the IRS and FBI cybercrime service with the support of the US Department of Justice, as well as the authorities of Latvia and Cyprus.

Chichasov now faces a maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison. He is also forced to pay $ 5 million that he obtained through criminal means.