Hacker in Snowflake Extortions May Be a U.S. Soldier

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:45:48 +0000

Two men have been arrested for allegedly stealing data from and extorting dozens of companies that used the cloud data storage company Snowflake, but a third suspect — a prolific hacker known as Kiberphant0m — remains at large and continues to publicly extort victims. However, this person’s identity may not remain a secret for long: A careful review of Kiberphant0m’s daily chats across multiple cybercrime personas suggests they are a U.S. Army soldier who is or was recently stationed in South Korea.

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Sudanese Brothers Arrested in ‘AnonSudan’ Takedown

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2024 14:17:07 +0000

The U.S. government on Wednesday announced the arrest and charging of two Sudanese brothers accused of running Anonymous Sudan (a.k.a. AnonSudan), a cybercrime business known for launching powerful distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against a range of targets, including dozens of hospitals, news websites and cloud providers. One of the brothers is facing life in prison for allegedly seeking to kill people with his attacks.

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Stark Industries Solutions: An Iron Hammer in the Cloud

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 23 May 2024 23:32:43 +0000

Two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a large, mysterious new Internet hosting firm called Stark Industries Solutions materialized and quickly became the epicenter of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on government and commercial targets in Ukraine and Europe. An investigation into Stark Industries reveals it is being used as a global proxy network that conceals the true source of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns against enemies of Russia.

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Feds Take Down 13 More DDoS-for-Hire Services

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 09 May 2023 14:05:44 +0000

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this week seized 13 domain names connected to “booter” services that let paying customers launch crippling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Ten of the domains are reincarnations of DDoS-for-hire services the FBI seized in December 2022, when it charged six U.S. men with computer crimes for allegedly operating booters.

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German Police Raid DDoS-Friendly Host ‘FlyHosting’

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2023 18:35:15 +0000

Authorities in Germany this week seized Internet servers that powered FlyHosting, a dark web service that catered to cybercriminals operating DDoS-for-hire services. Fly Hosting first advertised on cybercrime forums in November 2022, saying it was a Germany-based hosting firm that was open for business to anyone looking for a reliable place to host malware, botnet controllers, or DDoS-for-hire infrastructure.

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UK Sets Up Fake Booter Sites To Muddy DDoS Market

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2023 17:26:07 +0000

The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has been busy setting up phony DDoS-for-hire websites that seek to collect information on users, remind them that launching DDoS attacks is illegal, and generally increase the level of paranoia for people looking to hire such services. 

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Thinking of Hiring or Running a Booter Service? Think Again.

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2023 02:30:15 +0000

Most people who operate DDoS-for-hire services attempt to hide their true identities and location. Proprietors of these so-called “booter” or “stresser” services — designed to knock websites and users offline — have long operated in a legally murky area of cybercrime law. But until recently, their biggest concern wasn’t avoiding capture or shutdown by the feds: It was minimizing harassment from unhappy customers or victims, and insulating themselves against incessant attacks from competing DDoS-for-hire services. And then there are booter store operators like John Dobbs, a 32-year-old computer science graduate student living in Honolulu, Hawaii. For at least a decade until late last year, Dobbs openly operated IPStresser[.]com, a popular and powerful attack-for-hire service that he registered with the state of Hawaii using his real name and address. Likewise, the domain was registered in Dobbs’s name and hometown in Pennsylvania. The only work experience Dobbs listed on his resume was as a freelance developer from 2013 to the present day. Dobbs’s resume doesn’t name his booter service, but in it he brags about maintaining websites with half a million page views daily, and “designing server deployments for performance, high-availability and security.” In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice seized Dobbs’s IPStresser website and charged him with one count of aiding and abetting computer intrusions. Prosecutors say his service attracted more than two million registered users, and was responsible for launching a staggering 30 million distinct DDoS attacks.

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Six Charged in Mass Takedown of DDoS-for-Hire Sites

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2022 19:58:00 +0000

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) today seized four-dozen domains that sold “booter” or “stresser” services — businesses that make it easy and cheap for even non-technical users to launch powerful Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks designed knock targets offline. The DOJ also charged six U.S. men with computer crimes related to their alleged ownership of the popular DDoS-for-hire services.

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A week in security (June 20 – June 26)

Credit to Author: Malwarebytes Labs| Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2022 09:30:06 +0000

The most important and interesting computer security stories from the last week.

The post A week in security (June 20 – June 26) appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

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DDoS-for-hire service provider jailed

Credit to Author: Malwarebytes Labs| Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2022 13:59:17 +0000

Matthew Gatrel has been found guilty of three counts of computer-related crime. His partner in crime, Juan “Severon” Martinez, pleaded guilty before the trial.

The post DDoS-for-hire service provider jailed appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

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