Julius “Zeekill” Kivimäki, is a 25-year-old Finnish man accused of extortion after hacking who was arrested this week in France.
The notorious hacker was convicted of committing tens of thousands of cybercrimes, and had been in hiding since October 2022, when he failed to appear on court. Finland then issued an international warrant for his arrest.
At the end of October 2022, Kivimäki was convicted in absentia of the attempted blackmail of the Psycho Centertreatments Vastaamo (Vastaamo Psychotherapy Center). The breach occurred in October 2020, and soon after a hacker nicknamed “Ransom Man” threatened to publish patient notes if Vastaamo did not pay a six-figure ransom.
Vastaamo refused, and Ransom Man began blackmailing individual patients by threatening to publish their treatment notes unless they paid 500 euros.
According to French news site actu.fr, Kivimäki was arrested around 7am on February 3 when Courbevoie authorities investigated an incident of domestic violence. Kivimäki had been out with his girlfriend at a local nightclub, but when they were returning to the home they reportedly had a heated argument.
The police asked Kivimäki for identification, and he showed them one that said he was of Romanian nationality.
The French police did not believe it and after consulting the files of the most wanted criminals, they recognized Kivimäki and handcuffed him.
Kivimäki was a member of the Lizard Squad, a low-skilled group that carried out DDoS attacks. But American and Finnish investigators say Kivimäki's involvement in cybercrime dates back to at least 2008, when he met a founding member of the Hack the Planet (HTP) group.
Kivimaki and other members of HTP carried out mass attacks on servers using known security holes, and until 2012 Kivimäki was selling access to these servers in the form of a DDoS-for-hire service. Kivimäki was then 15 years old.
