One month into his second term, President Trump’s actions to shrink the government through mass layoffs, firings and withholding funds allocated by Congress have thrown federal cybersecurity and consumer protection programs into disarray. At the same time, agencies are battling an ongoing effort by the world’s richest man to wrest control over their networks and data.
A financial firm registered in Canada has emerged as the payment processor for dozens of Russian cryptocurrency exchanges and websites hawking cybercrime services aimed at Russian-speaking customers, new research finds. Meanwhile, an investigation into the Vancouver street address used by this company shows it is home to dozens of foreign currency dealers, money transfer businesses, and cryptocurrency exchanges — none of which are physically located there.
Twenty-four prisoners were freed today in an international prisoner swap between Russia and Western countries. Among the eight Russians repatriated were five convicted cybercriminals. In return, Russia has reportedly released 16 prisoners, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
The Russia-based cybercrime group dubbed “Fin7,” known for phishing and malware attacks that have cost victim organizations an estimated $3 billion in losses since 2013, was declared dead last year by U.S. authorities. But experts say Fin7 has roared back to life in 2024 — setting up thousands of websites mimicking a range of media and technology companies — with the help of Stark Industries Solutions, a sprawling hosting provider is a persistent source of cyberattacks against enemies of Russia.
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.
The United States joined the United Kingdom and Australia today in sanctioning 31-year-old Russian national Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev as the alleged leader of the infamous ransomware group LockBit. The U.S. Department of Justice also indicted Khoroshev as the gang’s leader “LockbitSupp,” and charged him with using Lockbit to attack more than 2,000 victims and extort at least $100 million in ransomware payments.
A cybercrook who has been setting up websites that mimic the self-destructing message service Privnote.com accidentally exposed the breadth of their operations recently when they threatened to sue a software company. The disclosure revealed a profitable network of phishing sites that behave and look like the real Privnote, except that any messages containing cryptocurrency addresses will be automatically altered to include a different payment address controlled by the scammers.
In 2021, the exclusive Russian cybercrime forum Mazafaka was hacked. The leaked user database shows one of the forum’s founders was an attorney who advised Russia’s top hackers on the legal risks of their work, and what to do if they got caught. A review of this user’s hacker identities shows that during his time on the forums he served as an officer in the special forces of the GRU, the foreign military intelligence agency of the Russian Federation.
Costa Rica’s national health service was hacked sometime earlier this morning by a Russian ransomware group known as Hive. The intrusion comes just weeks after Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves declared a state of emergency in response to a data ransom attack from a different Russian ransomware gang — Conti. Ransomware experts say there is good reason to believe the same cybercriminals are behind both attacks, and that Hive has been helping Conti rebrand and evade international sanctions targeting extortion payouts to cybercriminals operating in Russia.
Faced with a brain drain of smart people fleeing the country following its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation is floating a new strategy to address a worsening shortage of qualified information technology experts: Forcing tech-savvy people within the nation’s prison population to perform low-cost IT work for domestic companies.
