Leonid Aleksandrovitch Kuvayev (born 13 May 1972), who usually goes by the name of Leo, is a Russian/American spammer believed to be the ringleader of one of the world's biggest

spam Spam most often refers to: * Spam (food), a consumer brand product of canned processed pork of the Hormel Foods Corporation * Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages ** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages ...

gangs. In 2005, he and six business partners were fined $37 million as a result of a lawsuit brought by the

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

attorney general In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

. It was found that they were responsible for millions of unsolicited e-mails per day. According to

Spamhaus The Spamhaus Project is an international organisation based in the Principality of Andorra, founded in 1998 by Steve Linford to track email spammers and spam-related activity. The name ''spamhaus'', a pseudo-German expression, was coined by Lin ...

he could be the "Pharmamaster" spammer who performed a

denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host co ...

(DDoS) against the BlueSecurity company. Kuvayev is also behind countless

phishing Phishing is a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as viruses, worms, adware, or ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticate ...

and

money mule A money mule, sometimes called a "smurfer", is a person who transfers money acquired illegally, such as by theft or fraud. Money mules transfer funds in person, through a courier service, or electronically, on behalf of others. Typically, the mule ...

recruiting sites hosted on

botnet A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more Internet bot, bots. Botnets can be used to perform distributed denial-of-service attack, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send Spamming, sp ...

s. He has been called a "spam czar", and a "virtual criminal". Kuvayev has registered domains with registrars operating in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, and

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Most of his actual web pages have been hosted in China. It is suspected by some

information security Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...

professionals that Kuvayev may be involved in the operation and control of the

Storm botnet The Storm botnet or Storm Worm botnet (also known as Dorf botnet and Ecard malware) was a remotely controlled network of "zombie" computers (or "botnet") that had been linked by the Storm Worm, a Trojan horse spread through e-mail spam. At i ...

.David Utter, Security Pro News
"Storm Botnet Driving PDF Spam"
, July 13, 2007. As of 1 June 2011, Kuvayev has confessed to sex crimes, sexually molesting girls as young as 13 years of age using the basement of his office in Moscow as a "dungeon". Kuvayev allegedly targeted vulnerable youngsters from children's homes, some of whom had mental or learning disabilities. Reports indicate that Kuvayev could face up to 20 years in prison for each offence.Notorious Russian spammer 'admits child abuse'
The Register, June 1, 2011Graham Cluley, Sophos.com
"Spam king faces jail after admitting child sex charges"
May 31, 2011.Tom Washington, The Moscow News

, May 30, 2011. On 23 March 2012, a court in Moscow found Kuvayev guilty of sexual molestation charges.Lenta.ru, Rambler Media Group, English translation
"Jury convicts Spammer-Pedophile Kuvayev"
March 23, 2012.

References

External links

Spamhaus ROKSO record on Leo KuvayevSpamhaus record linking the alias Alex Rodrigez to Leo KuvayevEuropean Spam Wiki entry on Leo KuvayevAbuseButler recent WHOIS for Alex Rodrigez domainThe devil in the Internet, comprehensive article on Kuvayev and his vita so far
(in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kuvayev, Leo 1972 births 21st-century Russian criminals Email spammers Living people People convicted of child pornography offenses People convicted of sexual assault Russian Mafia Russian cybercriminals Russian expatriates in the United States Russian people convicted of child sexual abuse Russian people convicted of rape Russian rapists

See also

References

External links