Hacker spins up 1 million virtual servers to illegally mine crypto

Europol and Ukrainian police arrested a 29-year-old alleged mastermind of a large cryptojacking operation that hijacked cloud accounts to spin up over one million virtual servers for crypto-mining, generating approximately $2 million in proceeds; authorities seized equipment and financial devices, and the suspect faces criminal charges under Ukraine’s Criminal Code. The report outlines the actor’s use of automated brute-force against 1,500 accounts to gain admin privileges, the timeline (active since 2021), and recommends monitoring resource usage, enforcing updates, and enabling 2FA to mitigate such attacks.