US Indicts Russians, Firms Over Bulletproof Cybercrime Hosting

The Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging three Russian nationals-Aleksandr Alexandrovich Volosovik, Kirill Andreevich Zatolokin and Yulia Pankova-and two companies, ML.Cloud and Media Land, with operating bulletproof hosting services that prosecutors say supported widespread cybercrime.

The indictment, returned in December 2024 and made public this week, alleges the defendants ran hosting infrastructure with servers in China, the Netherlands, Finland and the United States. Federal prosecutors say the companies provided persistent service and concealment to customers seeking to avoid takedowns and law enforcement scrutiny.

Authorities say the hosting platforms were used for phishing campaigns, distributed denial-of-service attacks, brute-force intrusions, ransomware deployments and for hosting online cybercrime marketplaces and forums. The indictment states actors using the platforms targeted at least 42 entities across 21 U.S. states, producing losses described by prosecutors as in the tens of millions of dollars.

Bulletproof hosting refers to providers that ignore abuse complaints, resist law enforcement requests and maintain infrastructure to shelter illegal activity. Prosecutors allege ML.Cloud and Media Land offered such protections and used geographically dispersed servers to route traffic and hide the origins of attacks.

The unsealing comes after sanctions announced in late 2025 by the United States and allied governments that targeted the companies and other individuals linked to transnational cybercriminal activity. The Justice Department is offering up to $10 million and potential relocation assistance for information that leads to arrests or disruption of the networks.

The indictment does not indicate whether the named defendants are in custody. Federal prosecutors directed members of the public to report tips through designated channels associated with the reward offer.

Prosecutions and arrests of administrators tied to bulletproof hosting have occurred in prior cases, including actions that targeted services sheltering Russian-linked threat groups. U.S. authorities have combined criminal charges, international law enforcement cooperation and economic sanctions in efforts to disrupt the infrastructure that supports large-scale cybercrime.