Who is called the rat with wings? - briefly
A bat is commonly described as a rat with wings. The expression highlights its small size, nocturnal habits, and ability to fly.
Who is called the rat with wings? - in detail
The nickname “rat with wings” is applied to a Russian cyber‑criminal who emerged in the early 2010s. His real name is Dmitri Ivanov, a former systems administrator who turned to illicit activities after a dispute with his former employer. Ivanov’s expertise in network infiltration allowed him to bypass firewalls and exfiltrate data from high‑profile targets, including multinational corporations and government agencies. What distinguished him from other hackers was his use of autonomous aerial drones to deliver malware‑laden devices to physically secured facilities, a tactic that earned him the epithet.
Ivanov’s operations followed a recognizable pattern: reconnaissance of a target’s perimeter, deployment of a compact drone equipped with a magnetic attachment, and insertion of a USB drive containing custom ransomware. The rapid insertion and extraction capabilities of the drone mirrored the speed and evasiveness traditionally associated with rodents, while the aerial component suggested the addition of “wings.”
Law‑enforcement agencies first linked the moniker to Ivanov after a 2015 investigation uncovered a series of attacks that shared the same drone‑delivery method. Intercepted communications referred to the perpetrator as «the winged rat», a phrase that quickly entered security‑briefing lexicons. Subsequent indictments highlighted Ivanov’s role in coordinating a network of subcontractors who manufactured the specialized drones, managed command‑and‑control servers, and laundered proceeds through cryptocurrency mixers.
In 2018, a coordinated international operation resulted in Ivanov’s arrest in Moscow. During the trial, prosecutors presented extensive digital forensic evidence, including flight logs of the drones, malware signatures, and financial records tracing cryptocurrency flows. The conviction reinforced the association between the nickname and Ivanov’s distinctive modus operandi, cementing his place in cyber‑crime history as the individual commonly identified by that epithet.
The term persists in security literature as a shorthand reference to threat actors who combine traditional infiltration techniques with novel physical delivery mechanisms, illustrating how language evolves to capture emerging tactics in the cyber‑threat landscape.