Extradited Russian Hacker Faces Charges Over Excel Malware Campaign That Infected Thousands

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged a Russian national, extradited from Cyprus on August 28, with using roughly 255 fake accounts on a freelance platform to send malware-laced Excel attachments to about 80,000 of its users in 2016 and 2017. Searzhudin Tamirlanovich Aktulaev, 40, was arrested in Cyprus in May 2025, the U.S. …