In June 2011, Russian authorities arrested Pavel Vrublevsky, co-founder of ChronoPay, Russia’s largest processor of online payments, for allegedly hiring a hacker to attack his company’s rivals. New evidence suggests that Vrublevsky’s arrest was the product of a bribe paid… Read More »
Yesterday I wrote about the public storefront where anyone can rent access to computers infected with TDSS, widely considered one of the largest and most complex botnets on the planet. Today, I’ll take a closer look at a Russian individual who appears to have close ties to the TDSS operation.
Criminals who operate large groupings of hacked PCs tend to be a secretive lot, and jealously guard their assets against hijacking by other crooks. But one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated botnets is openly renting its infected PCs to any and all comers, and has even created a Firefox add-on to assist customers.
Leaked online chats between the co-owners of the world’s largest pharmacy spam operation reveal the extent to which illicit organizations in Russia purchase political protection, and bribe public officials into initiating or stalling law enforcement investigations.
An international cybercrime gang stole $13 million from a Florida-based financial institution earlier this year, by executing a highly-coordinated heist in which thieves used ATMs around the globe to cash out stolen prepaid debit cards, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.
A Russian spammer suspected of being the man behind the infamous Rustock spam botnet earned millions of dollars blasting junk email for counterfeit Internet pharmacies. Those ill-gotten riches allowed him to buy flashy sports cars, but new information suggests they also attracted the attention of common street thugs who targeted and ultimately mugged the spammer, stealing two of his prized rides.
Earlier this year, Russian police arrested Dmitry Stupin, a man known in hacker circles as “SaintD.” Stupin was long rumored to be the right-hand man of Igor Gusev, the alleged proprietor of GlavMed and SpamIt, two shadowy sister organizations that until this time last year were the largest sources of spam touting rogue Internet pharmacies.
According to several sources who are familiar with the matter, Russian police pulled Stupin off of a plane before it left Moscow. The police also reportedly took Stupin’s MacBook and copied its contents. The police detained Stupin as part of an investigation into Gusev launched nearly a year ago. Gusev fled his native Moscow last year and has not returned.
Sometime in the past few days, more than four years’ worth of chat conversations — apparently between Stupin, Gusev and dozens of other GlavMed employees — were leaked. Those conversations offer a fascinating glimpse into the day-to-day operations one of the world’s largest organization cyber criminal organizations.
You’re out and about, and your smartphone’s battery is about to die. Maybe you’re at an airport, hotel, or shopping mall. You don’t have the power cable needed to charge the device, but you do have a USB cord that can supply the needed juice. Then you spot an oasis: A free charging kiosk. Do you hesitate before connecting your phone to this unknown device that could be configured to read most of the data on your phone, and perhaps even upload malware?
I recently wrote about an online service that was selling access to stolen credit and debit card data. That post received a lot of attention, but criminal bazaars are a dime a dozen. The real news is that few of these fraud shops are secure enough to keep their stock of stolen data from being pilfered by thieves.
On Wednesday I wrote that many of the top fake antivirus distribution programs had ceased operations, citing difficulty in processing credit card transactions from victims. Others are starting to take note of the trend: Security firm McAfee says it has witnessed a dramatic drop in the number of customers reporting scareware detections in recent weeks.
