Showing posts with label Hacker Arrested. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hacker Arrested. Show all posts

Jeremy Hammond -Key Member of Anonymous Affiliated LulzSec Pleads Guilty To Stratfor Hack

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/03/2013 09:07:00 pm

Jeremy Hammond -Key Member of Anonymous Affiliated LulzSec Pleads Guilty To Stratfor Hack, Could Face 10 Years In Prison

Lulz Security widely known as LulzSec, the most dangerous hacker collective group who set their devastating hacking rampage for fifty days in which they have successfully penetrated almost all the so called top secure fields; has suddenly stopped their sail. But stopping crime never means that the criminal will be overlooked, the pending punishment will surely take place. And this applied from LulzSec also. Lat year we have seen leader of LulzSec and also also leader of infamous hacker collective group Anonymous code-named "Sabu," whose real name is Hector Xavier Monsegur, turned traitor to his community and became FBI informer and provided all the information on fellow hackers. The arrest of Sabu subsequently helped law-enforcement officials to infiltrate Lulzsec, an offshoot of Anonymous, the loose hacking collective that has supported an ever-shifting variety of causes. The information provided by Sabu lead FBI to arrest all the key members of LulzSec including Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis, Raynaldo Rivera, Cody Kretsinger and so on. Among them there was Jeremy Hammond widely known as "Anarchaos" who was arrested by the federal authorities and been charged for the  breach of the security analysis company Stratfor. In December last year the bail application of Hammond was also been rejected by the the Court. So after several hearings finally the accused of security breach against global intelligence firm Stratfor,  Jeremy Hammond pleaded guilty in a Manhattan court to one count of computer fraud and abuse in response to charges that he hacked into the network of the privacy intelligence firm Stratfor, stealing millions of emails that eventually were given to WikiLeaks and published over the course of 2012. The plea agreement could carry a sentence of as much as 10 years in prison, as well as millions of dollars in restitution payments, though Hammond’s official sentence won’t be handed down until September. Hammond also told Judge Loretta A. Preska of Federal District Court in Manhattan that in 2011 and 2012 he had gained unauthorized access to Stratfor’s computer systems and several other groups, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Virtual Academy, the public safety department in Arizona, and Vanguard Defense Industries, which makes drones. 
"Now that I have pleaded guilty, it is a relief to be able to say that I did work with Anonymous to hack Stratfor, among other websites," Hammond said in a statement on last Tuesday. 
A petition posted to Change.org by Hammond’s brother Jason Hammond asks the judge in Hammond’s case, Loretta Preska, to sentence him to time served, given that he’s already spent 15 months in lockup. “Jeremy did nothing for personal gain and everything in hopes of making the world a better place,” reads Hammond’s brother’s petition. “Jeremy is facing a maximum sentence of ten years, but the minimum is zero. He has been in jail since March 2012 awaiting trial and now sentencing. It’s time for him to come home.”


-Source (Forbes & Huffington Post)





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Self Propagated LulzSec Leader 'Aush0k' Arrested By Australian Federal Police

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/05/2013 03:10:00 pm

Self Propagated LulzSec Leader 'Aush0k' Arrested in Sydney By Australian Federal Police (AFP)

Many of us knew Hector Xavier Monsegur widely known as 'Sabu' as the leader of infamous international hacker group LulzSec and Antisec. But this idea will surely be changed when you will hear the histrionic story, which came to light when a 24 old Australian proclaimed himself as the leader of notorious hacker collective group Lulz Security also known as LulzSec. The man, known online as Aush0k, is a senior Australian IT professional who works for the local arm of an international IT company. Police say he was in a "position of trust" within the company and had access to information on government clients which Aush0k manipulated and misused. According to Australian Federal Police a special investigation began less than two weeks ago when investigators found a government website had been compromised. The man has been charged with two counts of unauthorized modification of data to cause impairment and one count of unauthorized access to a restricted computer system. He faces a maximum of 12 years in jail. AFP Commander Glen McEwen says the man posted in online forums frequented by other members of LulzSec that he was the group's leader. "There was no denials of his claims of being the leader," added McEwen. The man was charged and appeared in court on the very day of his arrest. And he will face Woy Woy Local Court again on May 15. 
While talking about this dramatic story of proclaimed LulzSec leader Aush0k, we would love to remind you the decent history when the leader of Anonymous affiliated LulzSec "Sabu," whose real name is Hector Xavier Monsegur, turned traitor to his community and became FBI informer and provided all the information on fellow hackers. As soon as the FBI gathered all the sensational information from Sabu, immediately we have seen the arrest of almost all the key members of LulzSec including Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis, Jeremy Hammond, Raynaldo Rivera, Cody Kretsinger and so on. And today we have seen the arrest of another LulzSec leader and key man, and this arrest is the first one done by the AFP. Earlier the arrest of Sabu proved very handy for the law and enforcement, may be this time also Aush0k's arrest can show them few more directions and can open few closed doors of investigation. So till time wait and stay tuned with VOGH for the updates on this story, also all the other cyber updates. 



-Source (ABC News)




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Pirate Bay Co-Founder Svartholm Warg Accused For Hacking, Fraud & Attempt to Steal Money From Bank

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/18/2013 06:07:00 pm

Pirate Bay Co-Founder Svartholm Warg Accused For Hacking, Fraud & Attempt to Steal Money From Swedish Bank 

The Pirate Bay also known as TPB is the most infamous website providing torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer to peer file sharing. It is fact that many of us love the website, but it is also undeniable that if you are in the core team to run TPB then you are definitely sitting on the edge of legality. Many of you have already started terrifying! But I have the news which will not frighten you but surely will surely frighten Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, the co-founder of Pirate Bay. Gottfrid might get mercy if he could limited himself only into Pirate Bay, but in reality he did not and crossed all the lines. The 27-year-old’s Gottfrid widely known as 'Anakata' has been charged for hacking several Swedish companies and stealing their personal data. He and three others are also accused of attempting to make illegal online money transfers. Prosecutors claim Warg  along with three others—hacked IBM mainframes belonging to tax firm Logica and the bank to transfer money from various bank accounts. In total, the four men reportedly attempted to transfer just over US$900,000. Warg has also been accused of hacking into the databases of several Swedish businesses and the government’s federal taxing agency.
In his statement prosecutor Henrik Olin said - "A large amount of data from companies and agencies was taken during the hack, including a large amount of personal data, such as personal identity numbers (personnummer) of people with protected identities. I'd say that Svartholm Warg is the main person and brains behind the hacker attack. We've had a lot of theories but I can't find a motive in the evidence. What I can say is that we're talking about an incredibly technically advanced hack against a large server environment considered to have very high security and that can boost one's status in certain circles" 
Three other people have been indicted along with Svartholm Warg. They are all charged with serious fraud, attempted aggravated fraud, and aiding attempted aggravated fraud. According to the indictment, authorities seized a computer and chat transcripts of Svartholm Warg and the other suspects. Olin claims that it is the biggest investigation into a data intrusion ever conducted in the country. 
Here we want to remind you that Svartholm Warg, 27, was arrested in Cambodian and deported to Sweden in September last year due to an arrest warrant issued for him in relation to his conviction in the Pirate Bay trial. Since December, Svartholm Warg has been held in a prison in Mariefred in central Sweden where he is serving out a prison sentence related to his activities with The Pirate Bay.



-Source (The Local, RT)












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Gang of Cyber Criminals Arrested For Stealing $7 Million From Exchange Companies in Dubai

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 3/11/2013 02:54:00 am

Gang of Cyber Criminals Arrested For Stealing $7 Million From Exchange Companies in Dubai 

Yet again another infamous gang of cyber criminals who were behind the hack of more than $7 Million from exchange companies in Dubai get busted by the Dubai Police. The special Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Dubai Police were behind these criminals for a long time, and after a certain period they successfully managed to track down and crack the cyber crime ring. Major General Khamis Matter Al Mazeina, acting chief of Dubai Police, said on last Sunday that a gang of Asians and Africans work with hackers in order to enter different websites and systems of different companies here in Dubai in order to transfer money inside and outside the country. “Cheques worth more than Dh6 billion have been found with the gang after their arrest,” he said. He also said that the gang was able to transfer more than Dh7 million from exchange companies in Dubai to their own accounts. From an exclusive report of Gulf News we came to know that the deputy director of the General Department of Criminal and Investigation for research, Colonel Salem Khalifa Al Rumaithi said the incident happened early this month when police received complaints about a scam and transfer of $2 million from a company’s account. “This was done through hacking the e-mails of this company by someone outside the UAE,” he said.
He said the hackers used to change the data of the transactions, billing, and then transfer the money into their accounts.
He said the first accused, an Asian identified as Kh. Q., used to receive the transferred funds. “He owns three luxury cars which he bought from the proceeds of such crimes,” he said. 
He said the role of the second suspect, another Asian identified as U.K., was to provide the gang with bank account numbers by creating fake companies on the internet and dealing with the victims’ accounts. “After the process of converting the money credited to the first accused U.K. used to take 3 per cent of the money and give the remaining to an African man who was the mastermind. According to Lt Colonel Saeed Al Hajeri, director of the electronic investigation department, the third suspect was identified as D.Q. from Africa.
“The role of this suspect was as a mediator between the gang members and manipulating the business processes and changing the bank accounts to any other account,” he said. The suspect admitted that he was part of the Dh4 billion scam and another Dh6 million scam.
Lt Col Al Hajeri said Dubai Police had taken the necessary measures to obtain sufficient information from the rest of the gang members who operate outside the country in African countries through Interpol. Brigadier Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, director of CID, said the police team worked on arresting the gang quickly.






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3 Russian Cyber Criminal Who Was The Master Mind of Banking Trojan 'Gozi' Charged in New York

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/01/2013 08:53:00 pm

3 Russian Cyber Criminal Who Was The Master Mind of Banking Trojan 'Gozi' Charged in New York 

Yet again another serious issue of cyber crime get resolved when the FBI tracked and figured out the master mind of infamous 'Gozi banking Trojan' which effected more than millions of system world wide, including a handful at NASA, leading to tens of millions of dollars in lost banking funds and damages to computer systems and networks. Three alleged international cyber criminals from Russia, responsible for creating and distributing 'Gozi' that infected over one million computers and caused tens of millions of dollars in losses charged in Manhattan Federal Court. Mihai Ionut Paunescu aged 28, a Romanian, Deniss Calovskis, 27, a Latvian, and Nikita Vladimirovich Kuzmin, 25, of the Russian Federation, are charged with computer intrusion, conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and access device fraud. Federal authorities said the three were arrested last week; Kuzmin is being held in New York, while Paunescu is in custody in Romania and Calovskis in Latvia. 
According to the press release of FBI -Deniss Calovskis, a/k/a “Miami,” a Latvian national who allegedly wrote some of the computer code that made the Gozi virus so effective, was arrested in Latvia in November 2012. Mihai Ionut Paunescu, a/k/a “Virus,” a Romanian national who allegedly ran a “bulletproof hosting” service that enabled cyber criminals to distribute the Gozi virus, the Zeus trojan, and other notorious malware and to conduct other sophisticated cyber crimes, was arrested in Romania in December 2012. 

The cases are being handled by the Complex Frauds Unit of the United States Attorney’s Office. Assistant United States Attorneys Sarah Lai, Nicole Friedlander, and Thomas G.A. Brown, along with Trial Attorney Carol Sipperly of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Department of Justice on the Paunescu case, are in charge of the prosecution. The charges contained in the Indictments are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

DefendantAge and ResidenceChargesMaximum Penalty
Nikita Kuzmin25; Moscow, RussiaConspiracy to commit bank fraud; bank fraud; conspiracy to commit access device fraud; access device fraud; conspiracy to commit computer intrusion; computer intrusion95 years in prison
Deniss Calovskis27; Riga, LatviaConspiracy to commit bank fraud; conspiracy to commit access device fraud; conspiracy to commit computer intrusion; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft67 years in prison
Mihai Ionut Paunescu28; Bucharest, RomaniaConspiracy to commit computer intrusion; conspiracy to commit bank fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud60 years in prison


Brief About Gozi:-
The Gozi virus is malicious computer code, or “malware,” that steals personal bank account information, including usernames and passwords, from the users of affected computers. It was named by private sector information security experts in the U.S. who, in 2007, discovered that previously unrecognized malware was stealing personal bank account information from computers across Europe on a vast scale, while remaining virtually undetectable in the computers it infected. To date, the Gozi virus has infected over one million victim computers worldwide, among them at least 40,000 computers in the U.S., including computers belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as well as computers in Germany, Great Britain, Poland, France, Finland, Italy, Turkey, and elsewhere, and it has caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to the individuals, businesses, and government entities whose computers were infected.

The Gozi virus was distributed to victims’ computers in several different ways. In one method, the virus was disguised as an apparently benign .pdf document which, when opened, secretly installed the Gozi virus on the victim’s computer. Once installed, the Gozi virus—which was intentionally designed to be undetectable by anti-virus software—collected data from the infected computer in order to capture personal bank account information including usernames and passwords. That data was then transmitted to various computer servers controlled by the cyber criminals who used the Gozi virus. These cyber criminals then used the personal bank account information to transfer funds out of the victims’ bank accounts and ultimately into their own personal possession.


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FBI Wanted Cyber Criminal Hamza Bendelladj Arrested in Thailand

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 1/08/2013 02:52:00 pm

FBI Wanted Cyber Criminal Hamza Bendelladj Arrested in Thailand

Another FBI listed cyber criminal get nabbed. The suspect named Hamza Bendelladj of 24 yrs have been arrested in late Sunday night during a layover at Thailand’s international airport while traveling from Malaysia to Egypt. According to the officials Bendelladj is an Algerian national wanted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for allegedly making tens of millions of dollars from cyber crime. Police confiscated two laptops, a tablet computer, a satellite phone and a number of external hard drives from Bendelladj. According to the officials FBI had been pursuing Bendelladj for nearly three years. U.S. authorities believe the suspect hacked private accounts in more than 217 banks and financial companies worldwide, causing about $10 million in losses per transaction. After this arrest, he will be extradited to the U.S. state of Georgia, where a district court has issued an arrest warrant. In an exclusive report Bangkok Post said -a smiling Bendelladj, who was present at the press conference, denied claims by the Thai authorities that he was on the FBI's top-10 most wanted list. "I'm not in the top 10, maybe just 20th or 50th," the Algerian suspect said with a laugh. "I am not a terrorist."



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Two Nigerians Arrested For Hacking into Mail Servers of Ghana Armed Force & Stealing $13,978

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 12/19/2012 12:51:00 pm

Two Nigerians Arrested For Hacking into Mail Servers of Ghana Armed Force & Stealing $13,978

Two middle aged Nigerians have been arrested for hacking into mail server of Ghana Armed Force (GAF). The suspects, Peter Okechukwu, 32, and Emmanuel Ifedi, 31, were arrested by officials of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service at a branch of the United Bank of Africa (UBA). In a report Ghana Business News said-  these two cyber criminal get busted in Accra  while attempting to divert $13,978 belonging to, Ghanaian peacekeepers after they had succeeded in hacking into the e-mails of GAF. According to the Director-General of the CID, Commissioner of Police Mr Prosper Agblor, in November this year the two suspects managed to enter the e-mails of Continental African Trading Limited (CATAL) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) GHANBATT 76 and intercepted all electronic communications between the two parties. CATAL, an international organisation, had been supplying home appliances' to Ghanaian peacekeeping troops on various missions at different locations in the world. 
Recently, CATAL was contacted, as usual, by the GAF to supply home appliances to UNIFIL GHANBATT 76 peacekeeping troops in Lebanon. Mr Agblor said there was correspondence concerning the supply of the items between CATAL and the military through the Internet. Along the line, he said, the e-mails between the GAF and CATAL were hacked into by the two Nigerians, who intercepted all mails from both ends and replied them as if the replies were coming from the rightful receivers of the e-mails. 
He said the two suspects, using the identity of CATAL, sent an e-mail to the GAF instructing it to pay $13,978 into a UBA account number 01011651102235 as part payment for the supply of the goods. Upon receipt of the information, the GAF transferred $13,978 into the account as instructed by the two suspects.
Mr Agblor said CATAL realized that the GAF had suddenly stopped communicating with the company on matters relating to the transfer of the money and so it followed up with a phone call and detected that the GAF had paid $13,978 into an account number supplied by CATAL. 
He said it was at that stage that the two organisations realised that someone had hacked into their e-mails and quickly reported the issue to the Documentation and Visa Fraud Unit of the CID. Mr Agblor said the Business Development Manager of CATAL reported the case to the police and checks at the bank revealed that the money had not yet been cashed by the suspects. The police quickly mounted surveillance at the bank, awaiting the arrival of the suspects to cash the money. 
According to the CID boss, on November 11, 2012, Okechukwu, who happened to be the owner of the said account, was arrested when he turned up at the bank to cash the amount. Upon interrogation, the police said, Okechukwu admitted to the offence but mentioned Ifedi as the master brain behind the whole deal and led the police to Ifedi's house at Ashaley Botwe, an Accra suburb. Mr Agblor said investigations were still ongoing, after which the two would be put before court.






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British Court Convicts Anonymous Hacker "Nerdo" For DDoS Attack Over WikiLeaks Funding

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 12/11/2012 05:53:00 pm

British Court Convicts Anonymous Hacker "Nerdo" For DDoS Attack Over WikiLeaks Funding

Another alleged Anonymous hacker faced cour rule. A British court has convicted a 22-year-old for allegedly being a ‘key figure’ behind Anonymous DDoS attack on PayPal in revenge for its freezing WikiLeaks payments. A 22-year-old British student Christopher Weatherhead, self described "hacktivist", going by the name of "Nerdo" was convicted by the jury on a count of conspiracy to impair computer operations. The conviction came after guilty pleas of three of Weatherhead's co-conspirators.
"Christopher Weatherhead is a cyber criminal who waged a sophisticated and orchestrated campaign of online attacks on the computer systems of several major companies," prosecutor for the CPS Organized Crime Division Russell Tyner said in a statement. "These were lawful companies with ordinary customers and hard working employees. This was not a victimless crime."
This court rule came as a part of its ongoing pursuit to strike back at hackers, U.K. courts have convicted a member of Anonymous for conspiracy.
That very cyber attack, for which Christopher Weatherhead has been charged was dubbed "Operation Payback" where Weatherhead and several other Anonymous members targeted those companies that opposed internet piracy, but switched to companies like Mastercard, Visa and PayPal after they refused to process payments to WikiLeaks. Recently in our report, we described that Operation Payback cost a massive damage, for PayPal it cost more than €4.3 million. According to CPS, those campaigns carried by the hacker cost the companies more than $5.6 million in additional staffing, software, and loss of sales. 
The student denied the accusation claiming he was merely an Anonymous chatroom operator and never took part in the attacks. The judge allegedly demanded that Weatherhead provide “as much information as possible” and threatened him with a jail term. The court ruling in Mr. Weatherhead's case will be announced later. 



-Source (Cnet)








 

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LulZsec Hacker Jeremy Hammond Denied Bail & Have to Face 30 Years in Prison

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 12/02/2012 07:02:00 pm

LulZsec Hacker Jeremy Hammond Denied Bail & Have to Face 30 Years in Prison 

More trouble coming towards LulzSec, as the bail appeal of former LulzSec hacker Jeremy Hammond has been denied by the court. Hammond widely known as "Anarchaos" have to face a potential sentence of 30 years to life for alleged hacking crimes is probably enough to get the attention of most 27-year-olds. And that is what U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska told Hammond last week that he could face if he is convicted on all counts. Hammond, much better known in the world of hactivism by various online aliases including "Anarchaos," "sup_g," "burn," "yohoho," "POW," "tylerknowsthis," and "crediblethreat," has been held without bail since his arrest in March on charges connected with last year's hacking of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based international intelligence broker, by AntiSec, an offshoot of LulzSec, which is in turn an offshoot of the hacktivist collective Anonymous.
The three-count federal indictment, brought in the Southern District of New York, charged him with conspiracy to commit computer hacking, computer hacking and conspiracy to commit access device fraud. More specifically, the government alleges that starting last December, Hammond and others from AntiSec stole information from about 860,000 Stratfor subscribers, including emails, account information, and data from about 60,000 credit cards. The government alleges that he published some of that information online, and used some of the stolen credit card data to run up at least $700,000 in unauthorized charges. He is also accused of giving about five million internal emails to WikiLeaks, which were published under the name The Global Intelligence Files.
Apparently unknown to Hammond, however, was that the then-leader of AntiSec, Hector Xavier Monsegur, a New York hacker known by the alias "Sabu," had been arrested the previous June and agreed to cooperate with the FBI. So, at least some of the Stratfor information Hammond uploaded was to a honey pot server maintained by the FBI. At a hearing last week, Hammond was denied bail, based on Judge Preska's determination that he was both a danger to the community and a flight risk. He had also recently been added to the Terrorist Watch List, said Sue Crabtree, a member of the Jeremy Hammond Solidarity Network and a spectator at his bail hearing. Crabtree said Hammond didn't even have a passport. The bail denial sparked another round of protest from Hammond's supporters. Anonymous published a message on Pastebin demanding that Preska recuse herself for conflict of interest. The group said her husband, Thomas J. Kavaler, was among Stratfor's clients, and therefore one of the alleged victims of the hack. Kavaler is a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP in New York City.

"Judge Preska by proxy is a victim of the very crime she intends to judge Jeremy Hammond for," Anonymous wrote in a message posted last Friday. "Judge Preska has failed to disclose the fact that her husband is a client of Stratfor and recuse herself from Jeremy's case, therefore violating multiple Sections of Title 28 of the United States Code."
Beyond that, a writer identified only as "NA" on the website FreeHammond.com, argued that "Hacktivists are not criminals! Jeremy is alleged of a crime that has exposed the corruption and exploitation of the very State prosecuting him," and suggested entrapment by the FBI as well.
Renowned security expert Kevin Mitnick said it is possible that the government is trying to scare Hammond to get him to cooperate. Or, it could be designed to send a message to Anonymous members that what they view as sticking it to the man could yield some very serious consequences. Hammond is scheduled to go to trial sometime next year.



 -Source (CSO Online)







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Russian Hacker Behind Cyber Attack on Georgia Caught on His Webcam

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 11/02/2012 03:29:00 am

Suspected Russian Hacker Behind Cyber Attack on Georgia Caught on His Webcam 

It said that there may be hundred ways to commit crimes but there are chances of one hundred and one times to get busted. Exactly the same things happened for a Russian hacker who was behind the cyber attack against the country of Georgia. Since 2011 Georgia is blaming that few Russian hackers are disturbing their cyber space while attacking its computer networks, injecting malicious code into websites, and planting spyware to steal classified information. After discovering that a cyber-spy was infecting government computers with malware designed to mine important documents, government officials decided to fight fire with fire. They intentionally allowed the malicious software to infect one particular computer, and baited it with a ZIP file called “Georgian-Nato Agreement” — exactly the sort of thing they knew the intruder would be looking for. Instead of important documents, however, the bait file was loaded with the hacker’s own malware. Once the hacker downloaded and opened the file, the software went to work stealing his documents and, best of all, hijacking his webcam to capture clear video of his face. According to the CERT-Georgia report, an analysis of the attack's command-and-control center revealed that at least 390 computers were infected in the attack. 70% of compromised PCs were based in Georgia, with other victims found in the USA, Canada, Ukraine, France, China, Germany and Russia. Computers hit in Georgia were predominantly based in government agencies, banks and critical infrastructure the report claims. 
In a 27 page report, the Georgian government explains in details that, how in early 2011 Georgian news websites were hacked in order to exploit vulnerabilities, and spread malware that hijacked infected computers and searched for sensitive documents. 
According to report by Naked Security- Georgian officials lay a trap. Georgia's CERT deliberately infected one of its own PCs with the malware, and planted a ZIP file named "Georgian-Nato Agreement" on its drive, hoping it would prove irresistible for the hacker. Sure enough the hacker stole the archive file and ran malware that Georgia CERT had planted inside, meaning that now investigators had control over the hacker's own computer. This made it relative child's play to capture images of the suspect at work in front of his PC. The CERT researchers claim that they also found a Russian email conversation on the suspect's computer in which he gives instruction on how to use his malware and infect targets. Furthermore, the suspected hacker's city, ISP, email address and other information were also acquired. Curiously, a domain used by the attackers was registered to an address in Moscow belonging to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, department of logistics - which just happens to be based close to the Russian Secret Service (FSB). Furthermore, according to CERT-Georgia, websites used to control the infected Georgian computers have links with RBN, the notorious Russian Business Network.



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FBI's Cybercrime Unit Taken New Initiative to Nab Hackers & Intruders

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 10/31/2012 06:09:00 am

FBI's Cybercrime Unit Taken New Initiative to Nab Hackers & Intruders 

The month of October has been declared by FBI as the National Cyber Security Awareness Month of 2012 , and in the last week of this month the cyber crime division of FBI has started a new program which will specially emphasis on hackers and intrusion. The main aim of this program is to focusing on hackers and to prevent cyber crime. Last month  Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a report based on information from law enforcement and complaints submitted to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) detailing recentcyber crime trends and new twists to previously-existing cyber scams. Now the recent movement of FBI will surely inject fear into the heart & mind of hackers. According to FBI's official release - Early last year, hackers were discovered embedding malicious software in two million computers, opening a virtual door for criminals to rifle through users’ valuable personal and financial information. Last fall, an overseas crime ring was shut down after infecting four million computers, including half a million in the U.S. In recent months, some of the biggest companies and organizations in the U.S. have been working overtime to fend off continuous intrusion attacks aimed at their networks. The scope and enormity of the threat—not just to private industry but also to the country’s heavily networked critical infrastructure—was spelled out last month in Director Robert S. Mueller’s testimony to a Senate homeland security panel: “Computer intrusions and network attacks are the greatest cyber threat to our national security.”
To that end, the FBI over the past year has put in place an initiative to uncover and investigate web-based intrusion attacks and develop a cadre of specially trained computer scientists able to extract hackers’ digital signatures from mountains of malicious code. Agents are cultivating cyber-oriented relationships with the technical leads at financial, business, transportation, and other critical infrastructures on their beats. 

Today, investigators in the field can send their findings to specialists in the FBI Cyber Division’s Cyber Watch command at Headquarters, who can look for patterns or similarities in cases. The 24/7 post also shares the information with partner intelligence and law enforcement agencies—like the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security and the National Security Agency—on the FBI-led National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force.
A key aim of the Next Generation Cyber Initiative has been to expand our ability to quickly define “the attribution piece” of a cyber attack to help determine an appropriate response, said Richard McFeely, executive assistant director of the Bureau’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. “The attribution piece is: who is conducting the attack or the exploitation and what is their motive,” McFeely explained. “In order to get to that, we’ve got to do all the necessary analysis to determine who is at the other end of the keyboard perpetrating these actions.”
The Cyber Division’s main focus now is on cyber intrusions, working closely with the Bureau’s Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence Divisions.  “We are obviously concerned with terrorists using the Internet to conduct these types of attacks,” McFeely said. “As the lead domestic intelligence agency within the United States, it’s our job to make sure that businesses’ and the nation’s secrets don’t fall into the hands of adversaries.”
In the Coreflood case in early 2011, hackers enlisted a botnet—a network of infected computers—to do their dirty work. McFeely urged everyone connected to the Internet to be vigilant against computer viruses and malicious code, lest they become victims or unwitting pawns in a hacker or web-savvy terrorist’s malevolent scheme.
“It’s important that everybody understands that if you have a computer that is outward-facing—that it’s connected to the web—that your computer is at some point going to be under attack,” he said. “You need to be aware of the threat and you need to take it seriously.” 


To Listen the Podcast of FBI's "“The intrusions are occurring 24/7, 365 days a year.” Click Here






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FBI Charged an Indian Programmer For Hacking & Damaging Toyota Website

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/20/2012 03:44:00 pm


FBI Charged an Indian Programmer For Hacking & Damaging Toyota Website 

A computer programmer from central Kentucky named Ibrahimshah Shahulhameed who once did contract work for Toyota has been charged with hacking into and damaging computers used by the automobile maker. The FBI filed a federal criminal complaint against Ibrahimshah Shahulhameed of Georgetown, Ky., alleging that the disgruntled former worker logged in to the www.toyotasupplier.com site, which the company uses to communicate with vendors around the globe, and issued commands to slow down the functions of the computer servers. "In some circumstances, there was no rational basis for issuing the commands, unless one was seeking to render the system inoperable," wrote FBI Special Agent Adam Keown, who conducted the probe. 
Both Keown and Toyota alleged that Shahulhameed worked on contract as a computer programmer for Toyota until being let go in late August. Andrew Sell, Shahulhameed’s boss at GlobalSource IT, a Milwaukee, Wis.-based company, told Keown that Shahulhameed had been dismissed because he was harassing other employees working on the Toyota account.
Sell notified Shahulhameed via email that night that his contract to work on the Toyota account had been terminated. “I want to be clear, to prevent any additional issues moving forward, that you should NOT have any future contact with … anyone at Toyota,” Sell wrote. In a response sent Aug. 24, Shahulhameed wrote, “I also want to make sure … I will not be responsible if anyone called me from Toyota.” At that point, Shahulhameed accessed Toyota’s internal computer system without authorization, the FBI and Toyota allege. Toyota also alleges that Shahulhameed possibly copied, downloaded and disseminated trade secrets and proprietary information, including pricing information, quality testing data and parts testing data. Keown had Toyota’s computer equipment examined as well as Shahulhameed’s computer, which the company gave him to use while working on contract. Keown determined that Shahulhameed spent about six hours inside the firewall of Toyota’s computer system, resulting in an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 labor hours in investigative time, restoration of systems and fixing the problems created by the hacking. “Several toyotasupplier.com and internal applications either were not working properly or went down for a number of hours,” Keown wrote.


-Source (mybroadband)





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Two Romanian Hackers Pleaded Guilty on Credit Card Hack & Faced 7 Years Imprisonment

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/20/2012 03:43:00 pm

Two Romanian Hackers Pleaded Guilty on Credit Card Hack & Faced 7 Years Imprisonment  

According to the U.S. Department of Justice two Romanian hacker- Iulian Dolan & Cezar Butu have pleaded guilty to participating in a US$10 million scheme to hack into the computers of hundreds of Subway restaurants in the U.S. and steal payment card data. Iulian Dolan, 28, of Craiova, Romania, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and Cezar Butu, 27, of Ploiesti, Romania, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, the DOJ confirmed. Dolan and Butu were two of four Romanians charged in December in U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire with hacking Subway point-of-sale computers. In his plea agreement, Dolan has agreed to be sentenced to seven years, and Butu has agreed to be sentenced to 21 months in prison. The two men, in their guilty pleas, acknowledged participating in a Romanian-based conspiracy, lasting from 2009 to 2011, to hack into hundreds of U.S. point-of-sale (POS) computers. Co-conspirator Adrian-Tiberiu Oprea is in U.S. custody and awaiting trial in New Hampshire. The group used stolen payment card data to make unauthorized charges or to transfer funds from the cardholders' accounts, the scheme involved more than 146,000 compromised payment cards and more than $10 million in losses.  
During the conspiracy, Dolan remotely scanned the Internet to identify vulnerable POS systems in the U.S. with certain remote desktop software applications (RDAs) installed on them. Using these RDAs, Dolan logged onto the targeted POS systems over the Internet. The systems were often password-protected and Dolan attempted to crack the passwords to gain administrative access. 
He then installed keystroke logging software onto the POS systems and recorded all of the data that was keyed into or swiped through the POS systems, including customers' payment card data. Thus Dolan managed to steal payment card data belonging to approximately 6,000 cardholders. Dolan received $5,000 to $7,500 in cash and personal property from Oprea for his efforts.
In his plea agreement, Butu said he repeatedly asked Oprea to provide him with stolen payment card data and that Oprea provided him with instructions for how to access the website where Oprea had stored a portion of the stolen payment card data. Butu later attempted to use the stolen payment card data to make unauthorized charges on, or transfers of funds from, the accounts. He also attempted to sell, or otherwise transfer, the stolen payment card data to other co-conspirators. Butu acquired stolen payment card data from Oprea belonging to approximately 140 cardholders. 
While talking about Romanian Hackers then one name definitely comes in mind and that is Razvan Manole Cernaianu aka "TinKode" who get busted earlier in this year, on charges of hacking into Pentagon and NASA servers, stealing confidential data. Also last year another 26 year aged Romanian hacker faced imprisonment for hacking into NASA servers. 


-Source (CSO)





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Former Anonymous Spokesman Barrett Brown Arrested in Texas

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/17/2012 11:15:00 am

Former Anonymous Spokesman Barrett Brown Arrested in Texas After Threatening FBI Agent

Barrett Brown, former spokesman and leader of infamous hacker collective Anonymous was arrested by authorities in Dallas. This arrest took place on Wednesday just hours after he posted a YouTube video in which he appeared to threaten an FBI agent for allegedly harassing his mother. Brown was arrested shortly before 11 p.m. and turned over to FBI custody, according to Carmen Castro, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office. Castro could not say what he had been charged with. Brown's attorney, Jay Leiderman, told the press that his client was charged with making threats to a federal agent.  
In immediate response Anonymous on Thursday,  released a statement on Pastie detailing what it claimed were credit card numbers, addresses and phone numbers of 13 federal government employees. On Twitter, the hacker group said the release of the information was in retaliation for Brown's arrest, calling him “our controversial hated/loved friend.”  But it seems that, these protest cant make any difference to Barrett Brown's future. We would like to remind you that in middle of last year Brown officially broke all his attachment with Anonymous. But still he has been under the eye of law enforcement for some time and In March, Brown’s home was raided by the FBI, which confiscated his laptop, when authorities revealed that Hector Xavier Monsegur was the person behind Sabu, the colorful leader of LulzSecurity, an offshoot of Anonymous. Brown has been faulted by many members of Anonymous for using his real name and for being quoted as a representative of the group, which prides itself on being loosely knit and having no clear leaders. He is best known for threatening to hack into the computers of the Zetas, one of Mexico's deadly drug trafficking cartels. Brown did not immediately return a message left on his cell phone on Thursday. Several websites posted what they said was video of Brown conducting a web chat as officers arrived, yelling "get your hands up!"


-Source (CNBC & Huffington Post)




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Hacker Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Selling Access to Botnets & Infecting 72,000 PCs

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/11/2012 12:05:00 am


Hacker Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Selling Access to Botnets & Infecting 72,000 PCs


A 30-year old computer hacker received a thirty month in prison sentence for creating a botnet and a charge of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. According to Depertment of Justice - Joshua Schichtel, of Phoenix, was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for selling command-and-control access to and use of thousands of malware-infected computers, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald C. Machen Jr.
Schichtel was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in the District of Columbia.  In addition to his prison term, Schichtel was ordered to serve three years of supervised release. 
Schichtel entered a guilty plea on Aug. 17, 2011, to one count of attempting to cause damage to multiple computers without authorization by the transmission of programs, codes or commands, a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
According to court documents, Schichtel sold access to “botnets,” which are networks of computers that have been infected with a malicious computer program that allows unauthorized users to control infected computers.  Individuals who wanted to infect computers with various different types of malicious software (malware) would contact Schichtel and pay him to install, or have installed, malware on the computers that comprised those botnets.  Specifically, Schichtel pleaded guilty to causing software to be installed on approximately 72,000 computers on behalf of a customer who paid him $1,500 for use of the botnet.

This case was investigated by the Washington Field Office of the FBI.  The case is being prosecuted by Corbin Weiss, Senior Counsel in the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.




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Pirate Bay Co-Founder Gottfrid Svartholm aka Anakata Arrested in Cambodia

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/09/2012 04:05:00 pm


Pirate Bay Co-Founder Gottfrid Svartholm aka Anakata Arrested in Cambodia

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg was arrested by Cambodian police on Thursday in Phnom Penh, the city that he made his home several years ago. Svartholm, known online by his nickname Anakata, was sentenced to one year in jail for his involvement in The Pirate Bay but has been missing for some time. Svartholm was wanted internationally but exact details as to why he was arrested have not yet been made public. Gottfrid’s lawyer Ola Salomonsson thinks the arrest could be related to The Pirate Bay case, but this hasn’t been announced officially. “As far as I understand it is because he is on an international wanted list,” he said. While there is no extradition treaty between Cambodia and Sweden the lawyer believes his client could be transferred to his home country eventually.
Pirate Bay, founded less than 10 years again in Sweden, made news over the past ten years for its controversial and generally illegal file-sharing practices. Specifically, Svartholm and his co-founder Fredrik Neij became the the whipping boys for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) – among other media companies for copyright violations. Those copyright violation allegations eventually ended in a prison sentence and fees for Svartholm. Svartholm never showed up to serve his sentence and a warrant for his arrest has remained outstanding ever since. The most recent arrest happened in Cambodia at the request of Swedish authorities. This time, however, the arrest isn’t tied to Pirate Bay but to something more serious: Svartholm is alleged to have hacked a Swedish IT company and leaked thousands of tax ID numbers. That company, Logica, provides services to the major tax offices in Sweden. Two Swedes have already been identified as suspects and it would appear that Svartholm is the third. Svartholm currently sits in Cambodia awaiting next steps. It was initially unclear as to what might happen since Cambodia does not have an extradition treaty with Sweden; extradition is the legal transfer of an accused person from one jurisdiction to another. Sources have indicated, however, that Cambodia appears to be cooperating with Swedish authorities.


-Source (TorrentFreak, Forbes)







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