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We’ve recently seen multiple arrests and take downs of cybercriminals and their infrastructure. Here is another one to add up. Law Enforcement in England has arrested and prosecuted a cybercriminal called Jam3s in cooperation with Trend Micro. His real identity is James Bayliss. James ran some SpyEye command-and-control servers and also coded a SpyEye plugin named ccgrabber. More than four years after the investigation started, this cybercriminal has been successfully prosecuted.

James worked closely with Aleksandr Andreevich Panin, a.k.a Gribodemon in coding the ccgrabber plugin for SpyEye. This plugin was used to collect credit card numbers, CVV’s by analyzing the POST request made by the infecting machine.

One of James’s SpyEye servers was installed on the IP address 91.211.117.25 that was active during September 2010. Below is the SpyEye configuration file we decrypted:

Figure 1. SpyeEye configuration file

Jam3s had many connections in the underground scene and friends he has made during his online criminal career. They mostly appear to be criminals that run botnets and/or write botnet code. He communicated frequently with Mr Panin, a.k.a Gribodemon and has made friends with Hamza Bendelladj, a.k.a bx1. Trend Micro has also participated in the arrest of Mr Panin as well as Mr Bendelladj. These arrests were part of a global investigation that involved the SpyEye malware and several associated cyber criminals.

Other accounts from ICQ that he associates with are SpyEye notify, Death/Cripter, Criminal, and Parabola, just to name some.

Figure 2. Associated accounts

This arrest shows how security companies, working closely with law enforcement agencies, can deliver results. By going after the cybercriminals themselves instead of their servers, we ensured that permanent damage was done to the whole underground, instead of relatively quick and easily repairable damage caused by takedowns. We believe that this is the way to attack cybercrime and make the Internet safer for all users.

Malware associated with the IP address 91.211.117.25:

• 91.211.117.25/se/bin/621430spyeyecrypted.exe 91.211.117.25 179d5d6c506a785d0f700468bf8ac97c Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:44:07 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/se/bin/build.exe 91.211.117.25 df30623d3c1aab7321ac0653cb09f2b7 Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:38:00 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/sp/admin/bin/build.exe 91.211.117.25 8904d483008d6284a8f76fb5b9a7cb39 Sat, 11 Sep 2010 02:06:27 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/sp/admin/bin/upload/gbotout.exe 91.211.117.25 87a5f7c496975c778d8c866195c9a7a5 Sat, 11 Sep 2010 02:06:42 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/sp/admin/bin/upload/out1.exe 91.211.117.25 143fdd161c7360060d30f540d7a86b27 Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:59:16 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/sp/admin/bin/upload/out.exe 91.211.117.25 143fdd161c7360060d30f540d7a86b27 Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:58:58 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/sp/admin/bin/upload/pedoout.exe 91.211.117.25 c35e406871df034041d5a92bcb01c85b Sat, 11 Sep 2010 02:07:08 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/spy/bin/621430spyeyecrypted.exe 91.211.117.25 179d5d6c506a785d0f700468bf8ac97c Sat, 11 Sep 2010 02:07:27 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/spy/bin/build.exe 91.211.117.25 ed3a6cdca7d3d6f22b0232fe5fabe3b1 Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:15:19 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/spy/bin/build.exe 91.211.117.25 f4ec7689e35c396f16e4d035f56fb391 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:19:04 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/spy/bin/build.exe 91.211.117.25 fbbdbc7a18ea27b571c1a58e5c38aa6c Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:26:34 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/spy/bin/out.exe 91.211.117.25 143fdd161c7360060d30f540d7a86b27 Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:22:32 UTC
• 91.211.117.25/spy/bin/spyeye.exe 91.211.117.25 d69b970afe781b385b9c4856dd1690ea Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:44:12 UTC
• advertisement1.com/spy/bin/build.exe 91.211.117.25 78a9d665c854873d7c4221935558f8ab Sat, 25 Sep 2010 00:22:29 UTC
• advertisement1.com/spy/bin/build.exe 91.211.117.25 fbbdbc7a18ea27b571c1a58e5c38aa6c Tue, 14 Sep 2010 03:24:30 UTC
• hvavac.com/spy/bin/build.exe 91.211.117.25 fbbdbc7a18ea27b571c1a58e5c38aa6c Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:08:47 UTC