A 25-year-old Russian man suspected of staging cyber-attacks on Seattle-based Amazon.com and other U.S. online retailers has been arrested in Cyprus, the Seattle Times reported citing U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan.
“This defendant could not hide in cyberspace, and I congratulate the international law enforcement agencies who tracked him down and made this arrest,” Durkan said in a statement on Thursday.
Dmitry Zubakha was indicted by a Seattle Grand Jury in May 2011 for “conspiracy to intentionally cause damage without authorization to a protect computer” and for “possession of stolen credit card numbers” in a separate case.
According to U.S. authorities, Zubakha and his accomplice, Sergei Logashov, carried out two “denial of service” attacks against Amazon.com in June 2008. Both attacks overwhelmed Amazon.com’s servers and caused their systems to crash.
The suspects staged similar attacks on Ebay.com and Priceline.com, and “took credit for the attacks in hacker Internet forums.”
Both men have also been charged with aggravated identity theft for the illegal possession of more than 28,000 stolen credit card numbers.
They could face up to 12 years in prison if convicted.
Zubakha is awaiting extradition to the United States, while Logashov is still at large.
