'PayPal 14' Culprits Enter Guilty Pleading Over Pro-WikiLeaks DDoS Attack Versus PayPal

Accused 'PayPal 14' Culprits of Anonymous Enter Guilty Pleading Over Pro-WikiLeaks DDoS Attack Versus PayPal

I am quite sure that all of your regular readers still remember the devastating cyber attack from Anonymous against PayPal, the attack was conducted under the banner of Operation PayPal (#OpPayPal). The infamous hacker community stated a reason for this mass protest as the online payment company suspending the account of WikiLeaks. #OpPayPal is considered as one of the most demolishing cyber attack ever taken in cyber space. PayPal with law enforcement agencies immediately taken steps and start investigation, in the primary step PayPal sent 1000 IP address of Anonymous hacker who was linked on that attack to FBI. As expected the hackers who were behind that attack was serially busted by the police. And finally the accused anonymous hacker appeared in federal court in California on Thursday and will be formally sentenced in one year. Eleven of the so-called “PayPal 14” members each pleaded guilty in court to one felony count of conspiracy and one misdemeanor count of damaging a computer as a result of their involvement in a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack waged by Anonymous in late 2010 shortly after PayPal stopped processing donations to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. Prosecutors say the defendants used a free computer program called the Low Ion Orbit Cannon, aka LOIC, to collectively flood PayPal’s servers with tremendous amounts of illegitimate internet traffic for one week that winter, at moments knocking the website offline as a result and causing what PayPal estimated to be roughly £3.5 million in damages. 

Pending good behavior, those 11 alleged Anons will be back in court early next December for sentencing, atpleading guilty to the misdemeanor counts only, likely removing themselves from any lingering felony convictions but earning an eventual 90 day jail stint when they are finally sentenced. A fourth defendant, Dennis Owen Collins, did not attend the hearing due to complications involving a similar case currently being considered by a federal judge in Alexandria Virginia in which he and one dozen others are accused of conspiring to cripple other websites as an act of protest during roughly the same time.

which point the felony charges are expected to be adjourned. Two of the remaining defendants cut deals that found them. In his press reaction defense attorney Stanley Cohen said the terms of the settlement were reached following over a year of negotiations, “based upon strength, not weakness; based upon principle, not acquiescence.” In the courtroom all the accused hacker stood up and said, ‘We did what you said we did . . .We believe it was an appropriate act from us and we’re willing to pay the price.’ 

On the other hand Cohen, who represented PayPal 14 defendant Mercedes Haefer in court, said one of the hacktivists told him after Thursdays hearing concluded that "This misdemeanor is a badge of honor and courage." When media questioned Michael Whelan, a lawyer for one of the defendants, he declined to comment on the plea. 

-Source (RT)

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

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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Teen Hacker "Cosmo the God" of Underground Nazi Sentenced 6 Yrs Internet Ban By California Court

Teen Hacker "Cosmo the God" of Underground Nazi Sentenced 6 Yrs Internet Ban By California Court

A teenager hacker from an infamous hacker collective group named Underground Nazi faced Internet ban. On Wednesday the 15 years old hacker known as "Cosmo" or "Cosmo the God" was sentenced in juvenile court in Long Beach, California. According to sources, Cosmo pleaded guilty to multiple felonies in exchange for a probation, encompassing all the charges brought against him, which included charges based on credit card fraud, identity theft, bomb threats, and online impersonation. 

This newly formed hacker group Underground Nazi had taken the spot light in January this year, when they hacked UFC.com (Ultimate Fighting Championship). Later they involved them selves in mass protest against controversial privacy act SOPA & PIPA. The protest was dubbed Operation Megaupload (#OpMegaupload), where hacktivist Anonymous  along with hackers around the globe stand together against the take down of Megaupload.com. In the middle of 2012 Cosmo was also responsible for Twitter outage, where Cosmo along with few other UG Nazi members performed massive denial of service attack to interrupt the service of Twitter. Also it has been found that, Cosmo pioneered social-engineering techniques that allowed him to gain access to user accounts at Amazon, PayPal, and a slew of other companies. He was arrested in June during a part of a multi-state FBI sting. 

Representatives from both the Long Beach district attorney and public defenders offices refused to comment on the case, given Cosmo’s status as a juvenile. However, according to Cosmo, the terms of the plea place him on probation until his 21st birthday. During that time, he cannot use the internet without prior consent from his parole officer. Nor will he be allowed to use the Internet in an unsupervised manner, or for any purposes other than education-related ones. He is required to hand over all of his account logins and passwords. He must disclose in writing any devices that he has access to that have the capability to connect to a network. He is prohibited from having contact with any members or associates of UG Nazi or Anonymous, along with a specified list of other individuals. He had to forfeit all the computers and other items seized in the raid on his home. Also, according to Cosmo, violating any of these terms will result in a three-year prison term. The probationary period lasting until age 21 is standard, but other terms were more surprising.

-Source (Wired) 

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

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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