Cyber Hack · BBC World Service

Evil Corp: 6. Fatherland

November 24, 2025·1 hr 8 min·6 clips

The UK's top cybercrime hunter explains why one Russian hacker, Maxim Yakubets, has been his mission for 15 years.

The file opens inside the investigation. Will Lyne, head of cyber intelligence at the UK National Crime Agency, is going back through material on Evilcore after years of seeing Maxim Yakubets surface. The host and Lyne look at old images and videos that appear to show Yakubets around a decade earlier, including a neon camouflage Lamborghini doing doughnuts in Moscow. It is a ridiculous image, which is partly why it sticks. Lyne's point is less flashy: Evilcore has been consistent, persistent, and harmful to victims in the UK and around the world. Then the episode pulls out. One alleged leader and one group give way to the wider shock of ransomware against American infrastructure. Colonial Pipeline is the hinge here. The transcript is careful: it does not suggest Evil Corp or Yakubets were behind that attack. The consequences still reached their world. Paying the ransom became a bleak calculation because getting the pipeline back quickly, safely, and securely touched ordinary life, not just corporate systems. That is when the politics get louder. The US government declared a state of emergency. Russia was blamed almost immediately. President Biden drew a line between the Russian government and criminals living in Russia, and the episode sits with why that line matters. If it is a state attack, the stakes can look like war. If it is a criminal attack, it stays below that threshold, even when the boundary looks blurry. The FBI named DarkSide. Around the same period, attacks on American companies and government institutions made ransomware feel less like a specialist problem and more like national security. Geneva brings the diplomatic version of the same story. At the first summit between the US and Russian presidents, cyberattacks sat beside election interference, diplomatic expulsions, Russian troops near Ukraine, and SolarWinds, which the FBI said was likely Russian. The close turns back to pursuit: cyber teams, victims, wealth, and an international chase that still feels unfinished.

As heard by us

A brisk, sober finish that turns cybercrime into a real-world power story.

Cyber Hack closes its Evilcore run by treating a notorious cybercrime crew as a case with reach, not a headline. It moves from Will Lyne's steady account at the UK National Crime Agency to Maxim Yakubets, then widens to the way ransomware can turn ordinary systems into leverage.

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Why you'd press play

Follow Evilcore from Moscow swagger to global alarm.

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