Featured Image Credit: seksan Mongkhonkhamsao/Getty Images
A notorious hacker who blackmailed thousands of therapy patients became one of Europe’s most wanted criminals.
Julius Kivimäki, known online as Zeekill, gained infamy when he joined a network of anarchic teenage hacking gangs at the age of just 13.
Between 2009 and 2015, he was involved in multiple cyberattacks, but Kivimäki's most shocking crime came in 2020 - during the height of the pandemic.
Advert
The now 27-year-old hacked into the database of Finland’s largest psychotherapy company, Vastaamo. He stole patient records and gained access to their personal therapy session notes.
He first tried to extort the company 400,000 Euro (£335,000), but when Vastaamo refused, he threatened the patients directly.
Tiina Parikka was one of the 33,000 victims who were blackmailed. She told the BBC that she was emailed by an anonymous sender who had hold of her name, social security number and other private details.
“It was a suffocating feeling,” Parikka described. “I was sat there in my robe feeling like someone had invaded my private world and was trying to make money with my life’s trauma.”
Using the alias "ransom_man", Kivimäki demanded the victims pay him €200 Euros (£167) within 24 hours to prevent their data from being leaked.
If they didn't meet that deadline, he increased it to €500 (£419).
The stolen database contained highly sensitive therapy records - some involving children - that exposed confessions of extra-marital affairs and crimes.
According to the BBC, about 20 people paid before many realised it was already too late.
Kivimäki accidentally leaked the entire stolen database online to a forum on the dark net.
But it was this mistake, along with digital forensics and cryptocurrency tracking, that led police directly to him.
Mikko Hyppönen at Finnish cybersecurity firm WithSecure researched the attack and described it as a national disaster.
“A hack on this scale is a disaster for Finland - everyone knew someone affected," he said.
Hyppönen and his team spent a lot of time tracing the hack to discover that the perpetrator was likely from Finland.
This led to one of the largest police investigations in the country’s history, ultimately zeroing in on a young Finnish hacker already notorious in the cybercrime world.
Kivimäki was eventually sentenced to six years and three months in prison, bringing an end to a case that holds the record for the highest number of victims in Finland’s criminal history.
But to those who were affected, like Tiina, this isn't enough.
“So many people were affected by this in so many ways - 33,000 people is a lot of victims and it’s affected our health, and some have been targeted with financial scams as well using the stolen data too,” she said.
