Bulgarian Police Arrest Hacker Instakilla

According to a report by ZDNet, citing Bulgarian law enforcement, the hacker known as Instakilla (real name not disclosed) has been arrested by Bulgarian police. The suspect is accused of hacking, extortion, and selling stolen company data online. During searches in Plovdiv, authorities seized several computers, smartphones, flash drives, and an undisclosed amount of cryptocurrency from the hacker.

Instakilla has been active since around 2017, but only gained widespread notoriety last year. In the summer of 2019, Instakilla leaked data stolen from Bulgaria’s National Revenue Agency online, although he was not directly involved in the initial breach.

Later that year, the hacker compromised the official forums of Comodo and then claimed responsibility for hacking several Italian and Dutch sex worker forums (prostitution is legal in those countries).

This year, Instakilla was linked to a major breach of the Stalker Online forums, from which he stole over 1.2 million user records and later put them up for sale on a hacker forum. On that same forum, he operated what was essentially his own “store,” selling data stolen from companies—including two unnamed Bulgarian organizations, a local hosting provider, and an email service. Eventually, Instakilla was banned from the forum for fraud.

As seen from these incidents, Instakilla mainly targeted vulnerable vBulletin forums, stealing their databases. He also ran his own website where he offered hacking services to anyone interested.

Currently, it is known that Instakilla has been detained by authorities for 72 hours.