From SoftServe to Virgin Media: the story of how cybercriminal Sergey Shinder siphoned off funds and company data by posing as a bogus IT agency

15 сентября 2026 г., 21:21

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From SoftServe to Virgin Media: the story of how cybercriminal Sergey Shinder siphoned off funds and company data by posing as a bogus IT agency

"One lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns" — Don Corleone’s famous line from The Godfather. Sergei Asael Shinder, Russian‑born and also known as Serguey Shinder, clearly took those words as a business plan.

True, he didn’t pursue a career in law. He found a more lucrative field: cyberfraud. It’s tempting to think that had Don Corleone lived to see this day, he, too, would have turned his attention to the IT industry, where enormous sums of money swirl. And, of course, like butterflies in the sun, it attracts not only those willing to honestly apply their genius and talent to developing software for the benefit of humanity, but also those looking to make a buck using their knowledge of the subject. These people are no less talented than the first, but they lack the desire to work long and honestly. Sergey Shinder is precisely such a person.

One day, he had a brilliant idea – to create a virtual agency to provide software development services. The idea, like all brilliant ones, was simple: take orders from large companies and distribute them remotely to young, ambitious, smart, but unknown programmers around the world. And pocket the difference. Nothing new, really. Many people do it. But Sergey Leonidovich didn’t inform his clients about the nature of his scheme. And, unlike other similar intermediaries, he had no intention of carrying out the work. If not for this fact, the scheme would have worked for a long time, perhaps even forever. After all, the client only cares about the work being completed, not who did it or how. And as long as no problems arise, no questions arise. But not in this case. Companies, including such giants as VTB Bank, Fidelity, Virgin Media, KLM, Kuoni, Ford, Symantec, Fujitsu, DeutschePost, Three, Tesco Mobile, and Liberty Global, began to experience problems and were forced to take a deeper look into what was actually going on.

And then it turned out that completely unknown people, scattered all over the world, had access to their software, passwords, security, and massive amounts of classified information. Well, how else could they work in such an outsourced environment? After all, an IT specialist needs access to the data they work with. Naturally, leaks, disruptions, missed deadlines, information theft, and a whole barrage of other problems began. On top of that, the unpleasant fact emerged that Shinder’s goals were quite different from those his employers had expected—he wasn’t focused on completing the job quickly and efficiently, but on extracting as much money from the client as possible. And what would happen to that goal wasn’t really his concern.

The scandal slowly escalated and reached its peak in early autumn. SoftServe, a software development and consulting company, suddenly discovered that someone had hacked its systems and stolen databases, development information, and even the personal data of its several thousand employees. An investigation revealed that the man behind it all was the subject of our story, with whom SoftServe had been careless enough to collaborate. Law enforcement
agencies from several countries became involved. The first step was to determine the identity of Sergey Shinder. Information about him turned out to be highly contradictory. A native of Russia, he holds several passports, including Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, and Israeli. How the 35-year-old native of the Russian hinterland managed to do this remains unknown. However, he is registered as an entrepreneur or company founder in several of these countries.

The material linked above describes in detail the countries and cities in which Sergei Shinder has registered his business.

The scandal was quite high-profile, particularly painful for the companies that collaborated with the fraudster. But it turns out it didn’t harm Sergey Shinder at all, at least outwardly: he continues to operate as an "IT consultant, developer, and project manager who, over 22 years of work, has studied the specifics of every region of the world and has a proven track record of working with major market players." At least, that’s how he was described to Focus, which interviewed Shinder extensively on December 25th. Moreover, he is listed as a "domestic" specialist. The fact that Sergey Asael Leonidovych is a Ukrainian entrepreneur is confirmed by his registration in Ukraine as such.

But further search for information leads to a dead end: he is simultaneously registered in Kaliningrad (Russian Federation) as a Russian entrepreneur and a Russian citizen:

Or did we miss something, and Kaliningrad is already Ukrainian? But what’s more interesting is that he already appears in another Russian registry as an Israeli citizen:

True, this registration has already been revoked, but whose citizenship is he? Ukraine, Russia, or Israel? And what about the other passports the media are reporting? But this topic is somehow not mentioned in the interview. Although the SoftServe scandal could not be avoided, Shinder categorically denied any involvement in it and stated that he "never collaborated" with the company. However, this topic is touched upon in just a few lines; Sergey Leonidovich then goes on to talk at length about his experience collaborating abroad and effusively praises himself as an expert.

We don’t know how much this self-promotion will help him in the future, but if everything that idle journalists have unearthed about Sergey Shinder and his activities in the IT sector is true, then big problems await him. The world of cyber specialists is quite unique, and the fame of its "heroes" spreads quickly. And the only difference between people in charge of cybersecurity at large companies and classic hackers is that they have placed their skills and knowledge on the "white side of the force." In other words, they’ve clearly already heard of their "colleague’s" exploits.

How this will impact the future career of this "domestic specialist" remains to be seen. Judging by the fact that several countries have already agreed to cooperate in investigating his activities, he will have to change his specialization. But most interestingly, why did he suddenly surface in Ukraine, and how long will he be able to hide here from his "grateful" employers? And which domestic businessmen will suffer as a result of his activities? These questions remain open.