Citing “extraordinary cooperation” with the government, a court in Alaska on Tuesday sentenced three men to probation, community service and fines for their admitted roles in authoring and using “Mirai,” a potent malware strain used in countless attacks designed to knock Web sites offline — including an enormously powerful attack in 2016 that sidelined this Web site for nearly four days.
A 19-year-old man from the United Kingdom who headed a cybercriminal group whose motto was “Feds Can’t Touch Us” pleaded guilty this week to making bomb threats against thousands of schools.
On Aug. 31, officers with the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested Hertfordshire resident George Duke-Cohan, who admitted making bomb threats to thousands of schools and a United Airlines flight traveling from the U.K. to San Francisco last month.
A 20-year-old from Vancouver, Washington was indicted last week on federal hacking charges and for allegedly operating the “Satori” botnet, a malware strain unleashed last year that infected hundreds of thousands of wireless routers and other “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices. This outcome is hardly surprising given that the accused’s alleged alter ego has been relentless in seeking media attention for this global crime machine.
Authorities in Santa Clara, Calif. have arrested and charged a 19-year-old area man on suspicion hijacking mobile phone numbers as part of a scheme to steal large sums of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The arrest is the third known law enforcement action this month targeting “SIM swappers,” individuals who specialize in stealing wireless phone numbers and hijacking online financial and social media accounts tied to those numbers.
An entrepreneur and virtual currency investor is suing AT&T for $224 million, claiming the wireless provider was negligent when it failed to prevent thieves from hijacking his mobile account and stealing millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies. Increasingly frequent, high-profile attacks like these are prompting some experts to say the surest way to safeguard one’s online accounts may be to disconnect them from the mobile providers entirely.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning banks that cybercriminals are preparing to carry out a highly choreographed, global fraud scheme known as an “ATM cash-out,” in which crooks hack a bank or payment card processor and use cloned cards at cash machines around the world to fraudulently withdraw millions of dollars in just a few hours.
Police in Florida have arrested a 25-year-old man accused of being part of a multi-state cyber fraud ring that hijacked mobile phone numbers in online attacks that siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from victims.
On July 18, 2018, Pasco County authorities arrested Ricky Joseph Handschumacher, an employee of the city of Port Richey, Fla, charging him with grand theft and money laundering. Investigators allege Handschumacher was part of a group of at least nine individuals scattered across multiple states who for the past two years have drained bank accounts via an increasingly common scheme involving mobile phone “SIM swaps.”
A 21-year-old Kentucky man has pleaded guilty to authoring and distributing a popular hacking tool called “LuminosityLink,” a malware strain that security experts say was used by thousands of customers to gain unauthorized access to tens of thousands of computers across 78 countries worldwide.
For as long as scam artists have been around so too have opportunistic thieves who specialize in ripping off other scam artists. This is the story about a group of Pakistani Web site designers who apparently have made an impressive living impersonating some of the most popular and well known “carding” markets, or online stores that sell stolen credit cards.
Federal prosecutors have charged three men with carrying out a deadly hoax known as “swatting,” in which perpetrators call or message a target’s local 911 operators claiming a fake hostage situation or a bomb threat in progress at the target’s address — with the expectation that local police may respond to the scene with deadly force. While only one of the three men is accused of making the phony call to police that got an innocent man shot and killed, investigators say the other two men’s efforts to taunt and deceive one another ultimately helped point the gun.
