'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)

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">'PayPal 14' Culprits Enter Guilty Pleading Over Pro-WikiLeaks DDoS Attack Versus PayPal"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2013/12/PayPal14-ofanonymous-enter-guilty-ple.html</a>

Stratfor Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 120 Months in Prison

LulzSec Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 120 Months in Prison For Stratfor Hack

Infamous hacker Jeremy Hammond convicted by the Judge for cyber-attacks on government agencies and businesses, including a global intelligence company. This 28 year old Chicago hacker who is also known as "Anarchaos" 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 U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska. On June this year Hammond pleaded guilty for his sin. In his statement he said "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." 

That guilty plea indeed worked out for him, as that time it was predicated that Hammond  might have to face 30 years in prison, but on Friday Judge Loretta Preska sentenced Hammond to 120 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release for illegally accessing computers systems of law enforcement agencies and government contractors. In an emotional proceeding that lasted more than 2 hours in a Manhattan federal court room on Friday, victims and relatives of Hammond railed against the FBI and shed tears on his behalf following the sentencing. One overwrought person claiming to be a victim was forcibly escorted from the court by officers. But Hammond likely knew the sentence was coming, his lawyer said. "When Jeremy took this plea with a 10-year maximum, I think he understood this was very likely the outcome," said Sarah Kunstler, Hammond's defense attorney outside of court house.

Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska said Hammond's digital handiwork had compromised thousands of people's personal and financial data, including the unpublished phone numbers and addresses of law enforcement, who then received threats. Hammond tried unsuccessfully to argue that his actions were politically motivated, she said. Hammond pleaded guilty to a single charge with a 10-year maximum sentence. Still his lawyers are asking to reduce his punishment for a sentence of 20 months.

Hammond 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. Prosecutors say the hack of Austin, Texas-based Strategic Forecasting resulted in the theft of 60,000 credit-card numbers and records for 860,000 clients. 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.

-Source (Fox News)

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">Stratfor Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 120 Months in Prison"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2013/11/jeremy-hammond-sentenced-to-120-months-in-prison.html</a>

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)

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">Jeremy Hammond -Key Member of Anonymous Affiliated LulzSec Pleads Guilty To Stratfor Hack"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2013/06/Jeremy-Hammond-Pleads-Guilty-To-Stratfor-Hack.html</a>

LulzSec Hacker Cody Kretsinger Sentenced 1 Year Imprisonment For Sony Breach

LulzSec Hacker Cody Kretsinger Sentenced 1 Year Imprisonment For Security Breach of Sony Pictures Entertainment  

Infamous LulzSec hacker Cody Kretsinger who pleaded guilty last year in front of Federal Court of California for taking part in an extensive computer breach of Sony Pictures Entertainment server has faced judgement. 25 year aged Kretsinger who is also known as "Recursion" was one of the key member of Lulz Security, widely known to us as LulzSec, an offshoot of the international hacking group Anonymous. According to federal prosecutors, Cody Kretsinger has been sentenced to one year in prison in  Los Angeles. This court rule has been followed by home detention. Kretsinger, was also been ordered by a U.S. district judge in Los Angeles to perform 1,000 hours of community service after his release from prison, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. Although prosecutors refused to say whether the hacker was co-operating with authorities in return for a softer sentence. 

During last year's plea hearing, Kretsinger told a federal judge that he gained access to the Sony Pictures website and gave the information he found there to other members of LulzSec, who posted it on the group's website and Twitter. "I joined LulzSec, your honor, at which point we gained access to the Sony Pictures website," said Kretsinger in the federal court. Prosecutors said Kretsinger and other LulzSec hackers, including those known as "Sabu" and "Topiary," stole the personal information of thousands of people after launching an "SQL injection" attack on the website; ultimately caused the unit of Sony Corp more than $600,000 in finical damage, along with that the attack caused bad impact and loss of faith for Sony Corporation and it's customers across the globe. 

While talking about this story, we would like to recap the decent history - where the arrest followed by guilty pleading of all the key members of LulzSec including  Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis, Jeremy Hammond, Raynaldo Rivera & Cody Kretsinger came a month after court documents revealed that Anonymous leader "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.

-Source (Reuters & Yahoo) 

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">LulzSec Hacker Cody Kretsinger Sentenced 1 Year Imprisonment For Sony Breach"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2013/04/Cody-Kretsinger-Get-1-Year-Imprisonment-For-Sony-Breach.html</a>

Angelina Jolie & Lady Gaga Became Victim of Ongoing Celebrity Hacking

Angelina Jolie & Lady Gaga Became Victim of Ongoing Celebrity Hacking 

Now a days it has became a fascination for cyber criminals to target and hack celebrities and public figures. Earlier we have seen similar scenario many a time. Last month an unnamed hacker released personal details of many public figure, national leaders, celebrities. The hacked data dubbed "The Secret Files" by the hackers contains personal information and credit reports (including social security numbers, details of their mortgages, addresses, and details of their credit card and banking details) was made public by those hackers on a website. Now we have past just a couple of weeks, yet again the same massacre took place, the hackers returned to the Internet after a brief hiatus and immediately hit six more. 

Angelina Jolie who played a key role in one of the most fine hacking movie named "Hackers" herself became victim to hackers in real life, as well as Jolie; Lady Gaga, NRA advocate Wayne LaPierre, Dennis Rodman, Michael Vick, Secret Service Director Julia Pierson and Robert De Niro. 

Like earlier, this time also the nature of the hack was similar to the previous the hackers have posted what they claim to be the social security numbers, mortgage amounts, credit card info, car loans, banking and other info for the celebs listed on their site. Last time, the website; where the hacker have posted those hacked credentials; were shutdown by the authorities. But it's now back up and running with a new domain extension (.re) that suggests it's based out of the French island of Réunion located off the coast of Madagascar -said TMZ in an exclusive report. Again also the same style were followed by the hacker group and leaving the very same message saying - "If you believe that God makes miracles, you have to wonder if Satan has a few up his sleeve."

According to sources - Jolie's page (prepared by the hacker) includes what is said to be her social security number as well as her credit report, which can be downloaded. There are addresses listed as well, but they are all business addresses, likely for her lawyer and other people she employs. The same information for Lady Gaga and Johansson is also available. However, Johansson's page also features a photo of her which became public through a previous hacking incident. The FBI has already started investigation, but so far no arrest have been made. In 2011 another high profile hack taken place, where the hacker targeted several celebrities like Scarlett Johansson & few more; while leaking nude photos. Later FBI carried out a special operation named 'Hackerazzi' which put a full stop in that issue and also FBI arrested the master mind named Christopher Chaney was sentenced to imprisonment after pleading guilty. 

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href="> Angelina Jolie & Lady Gaga Became Victim of Ongoing Celebrity Hacking "https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2013/04/Angelina-Jolie-Lady-Gaga-Hacked.html</a>

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

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.

Defendant	Age and Residence	Charges	Maximum Penalty
Nikita Kuzmin	25; Moscow, Russia	Conspiracy to commit bank fraud; bank fraud; conspiracy to commit access device fraud; access device fraud; conspiracy to commit computer intrusion; computer intrusion	95 years in prison
Deniss Calovskis	27; Riga, Latvia	Conspiracy 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 theft	67 years in prison
Mihai Ionut Paunescu	28; Bucharest, Romania	Conspiracy to commit computer intrusion; conspiracy to commit bank fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud	60 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.

For Detailed Information Click Here

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">3 Russian Cyber Criminal Who Was The Master Mind of Banking Trojan 'Gozi' Charged in New York"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2013/02/MasterMind-of-Banking-Trojan-Gozi-Charged.html</a>

Hollywood Celebrities Nude Photo Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison

Hollywood Celebrities Nude Photo Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison 

Photo hacking case of Hollywood celebrities takes another direction, as Christopher Chaney, who pleaded guilty to hacking into the e-mail accounts of Scarlett Johansson and other celebrities including Mila Kunis, Christina Aguilera and few others, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by the  federal judge in Los Angeles. Chaney was arrested last year as part of a year-long investigation  of FBI dubbed Operation Hackerazzi. At a hearing on Monday, U.S. District Court judge S. James Otero said that Chaney's conduct demonstrated a "callous disregard to the victims," some 50 in total, including two non-celebrities who the judge noted was stalked by Chaney for more than 10 years. The prison term was accompanied by an order to pay $66,179 in restitution. Chaney pleaded guilty to nine offences, including illegal wire-tapping and unauthorized access to computers. In his guilty plea, Chaney admitted to having repeatedly hacked email accounts over a period of at least eleven months. He hacked into email accounts by taking advantage of the "forgotten password" feature on web interfaces and using publicly available information to answer security questions. 

Chaney admitted that as his hacking scheme became more extensive, he began using a proxy service called “Hide My IP” because he wanted to “cover his tracks” and not be discovered by law enforcement agents. Even after his home computers were seized by law enforcement, Chaney used another computer to hack into another victim’s e-mail account. As a result of his hacking scheme, Chaney obtained private photographs and confidential documents, including business contracts, scripts, letters, driver’s license information, and Social Security information. On several occasions, after hacking into victims’ accounts, Chaney sent e-mails from the hacked accounts, fraudulently posing as the victims and requesting more private photographs. Chaney e-mailed many of the stolen photographs to others, including another hacker and two gossip websites. As a result, some of the stolen photographs were posted on the Internet.

"I don't know what else to say other than I'm sorry," Chaney said. "I could be sentenced to never use a computer again and I wouldn't care." For detailed information about this case click here.

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">Hollywood Celebrities Nude Photo Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/12/Hollywood-Celebrities-Nude-Photo-Hacker-Sentenced.html</a>

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

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)

 

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">British Court Convicts Anonymous Hacker "Nerdo" For DDoS Attack Over WikiLeaks Funding"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/12/Court-Convicts-Anonymous-Hacker-Nerdo-For-DDoS-Attack.html</a>

DDoS Attack From Anonymous Cost PayPal £3.5 Million of Damage

DDoS Attack From Anonymous Cost PayPal £3.5 Million of Damage 

The distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) from hacktivist Anonymous has cost PayPal more than €4.3 million. The attack which was named Operation Payback were initially aimed at companies that opposed internet piracy, but switched to companies like Mastercard, Visa and PayPal after they refused to process payments to WikiLeaks. After that attack PayPal -the global leader in online money transfer and payments has paid around £3.5 million defend and arm itself against such kind distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In a report BBC said that more than one hundred skilled employees from eBay, PayPal's parent company, spent almost three weeks working on DDoS-attack-related issues and that PayPal had bought software and hardware to defend itself against further attacks. In all, the total cost of this work came to £3.5 million. This details have been revealed in a court case at Southwark Crown Court where a defendant, Christopher Weatherhead (studying at Northampton University when who allegedly took part in the campaign), is facing charges of conspiring to impair the operation of computers. He has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to impair the operation of computers between 1 August 2010 and 22 January 2011.

Sandip Patel, prosecuting, said the group caused PayPal "enormous economic harm". Mr Patel said they used distributed denial of service, or DDoS, which flooded the targets computers with enormous amounts of online requests. Target websites would crash and users would be directed to a page displaying the message: "You've tried to bite the Anonymous hand. You angered the hive and now you are being stung."

Mr Patel said: "This case, simply put, is about hackers who used the internet to attack and disable computer systems - colloquially described as cyber-attackers or vandals." He said Mr Weatherhead, who used the online name Nerdo, posted plans on an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel encouraging an attack on PayPal. 

He said PayPal was the victim of a series of attacks "which caused considerable damage to its reputation and loss of trade". 

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">DDoS Attack From Anonymous Cost PayPal £3.5 Million of Damage"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/11/DDoS-Attack-From-Anonymous-Cost-PayPal-3.5-Million.html</a>

Julian Assange Facing Serious Medical Problems & Psychological Issues in Ecuadorian Embassy

Julian Assange Facing Serious Medical Problems & Psychological Issues in Ecuadorian Embassy -Said Assange Lawyer Garzon

I am sure that the millions of fans and supporters of WikiLeaks will be very unhappy after hearing that general health of Julian Assange getting drastically worsen in embassy. The lawyer of Assange warned that WikiLeaks founder could suffer serious health problems if he stays in London’s Ecuadorian embassy for longer. “Assange is in good health, but the situation is getting steadily worse,” lawyer Baltasar Garzon said during an anti-corruption conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The confined conditions in which Assange is currently living could cause him to “suffer from serious medical problems,” and lead to “psychological issues,” Garzon said. Assange has been confined inside Ecuadorian Embassy since June 19 in conditions Garzon described as worse than prison. Assange took refuge there to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning on charges of sex crimes. Previously, Ecuadorian vice foreign minister Marco Albuja said that he was “very worried” for Assange’s welfare, and that “he had lost a lot of weight.” The Ecuadorian government has asked the UK for permission to extract Assange from the embassy in London and transfer him to Ecuador. They also called for a guarantee of his safety if he has to be admitted to a London hospital at any time. The British government has flatly refused to negotiate, maintaining that they are legally obligated to hand him over to Sweden should he set foot outside the embassy. The WikiLeaks founder has now spent over four months in the embassy after losing his court battle against extradition. He claims the allegations of sexual abuse against him are politically motivated, and part of a US conspiracy to arrest him.

Assange drew Washington's fury after publishing thousands of classified diplomatic cables on the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks in 2010. The US government has denied claims that there is a secret grand jury case being prepared to prosecute Assange, but has not ruled out the possibility of requesting he be extradited from Sweden to the US. Despite Washington’s denials, there is evidence that the US government has been monitoring Assange for the last few years. Diplomatic cables released a month ago showed how US and Australian authorities shared information on the whistleblower. One of the wires indicated the most successful route to prosecution “would be to show that Mr. Assange had acted as a co-conspirator – soliciting, encouraging or assisting [US Army private] Bradley Manning, to obtain and provide the documents.” 

Bradley Manning, 24, faces a potential life sentence if he is convicted of aiding the enemy after releasing classified military intelligence to WikiLeaks in 2010. Manning’s lawyer said last week that he may plead guilty to some of the lesser charges set against him.

-Source (Cubasi News)

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">Julian Assange Facing Serious Medical Problems & Psychological Issues in Ecuadorian Embassy"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/11/Julian-Assange-Facing-Serious-Medical-Problems.html</a>

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) 

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">Teen Hacker "Cosmo the God" of Underground Nazi Sentenced 6 Yrs Internet Ban By California Court"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/11/Cosmo-of-UGNazi-Sentenced-By-California-Court.html</a>

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)

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">Two Romanian Hackers Pleaded Guilty on Credit Card Hack & Faced 7 Years Imprisonment"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/09/Romanian-Hackers-Pleaded-Guilty-on-Credit-Card-Hack.html</a>

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

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.

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">Hacker Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Selling Access to Botnets & Infecting 72,000 PCs"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/09/Hacker-Sentenced-to-Prison-for-Selling-Access-to-Botnets.html</a>

LulzSec Hacker 'Raynaldo Rivera' Arrested Over Sony Pictures Hack

LulzSec Hacker 'Raynaldo Rivera' Arrested Over Sony Pictures Hack

Last year hackers have targeted Sony many times.  Hacktivist Anonymous, Lulzsec have penetrated Sony's PSN network and stolen millions of user personal information. Later Sony was forced to shutdown its entire network & apologized for the whole massacre. Not only PSN, also Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Pictures, Several Sony's official website from different countries fallen victim to the hackers.  But in 2012 all the key members of LulzSec, who was mainly responsible for attack on Sony get busted one by one. Among them we can take the name of Jeremy Hammond, Ryan Ackroyd, Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis & so on. In the last move another hacker from LulzSec has been arrested in connection with an attack on Sony Pictures in June last year. A 20-year-old man 'Raynaldo Rivera' surrendered to FBI agents on Tuesday for his alleged hacking of Sony Pictures. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

The arrest comes shortly after a judge postponed the sentencing of LulzSec ringleader Hector Xavier Monsegur, known by his nickname "Sabu," for his continued cooperation in the investigation. Monsegur provided information to the FBI, leading to the arrests of one American man and four in the U.K. in March. 

Rivera allegedly used a proxy server to hide his real IP address and used a SQL injection attack against Sony, according the indictment, which was unsealed on Tuesday. The type of attack involves the input of commands into web-based forms to see if the backend database will yield information. Rivera, who went by the online nicknames "neuron," "royal" and "wildicv," allegedly distributed Sony's information to other LulzSec members, who publicized it on the @LulzSec Twitter account, the indictment said. Damages to Sony exceeded US$5,000.

Prosecutors allege Rivera worked with Cody Kretsinger, who was indicted in Sept. 2011 for the same attacks on Sony. Kretsinger allegedly provided the coupon codes along with email addresses and passwords for an extensive data release by LulzSec on June 2, 2011. Kretsinger pleaded guilty in April and is scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 25, according to the FBI.

-Source (BBC, PCW)

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">LulzSec Hacker 'Raynaldo Rivera' Arrested Over Sony Pictures Hack"https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/08/LulzSec-Hacker-Raynaldo-Rivera-Arrested.html</a>

Dutch Hacker Sentenced To 7 Years in Prison For Stealing Credit Card Numbers

Dutch Hacker Sentenced To 7 Years in Prison For Stealing Credit Card Numbers 

Another cyber criminal from Maryland get busted and has been sentenced for seven years in prison. He was part of a credit card hacking ring that targeted businesses in Seattle and across the country.  The U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle says Christopher A. Schroebel partnered with 21-year-old Dutch computer hacker David Benjamin Schrooten to steal credit card numbers from businesses across the country and sell them in bulk through websites. In their charges, prosecutors say Schroebel had in his possession 84,000 credit card numbers he had stolen or bought from other hackers. The two hackers operated "point of sale" operations, in which spy software is installed in computers used by businesses for transactions. The software records credit card numbers used. Schroebel pleaded guilty in May to charges of bank fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, access device fraud, among others. Schrooten, who was arrested in Romania, is set to stand trial next month. 

SHARE OUR NEWS DIRECTLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS:-
<a href=">Dutch Hacker Sentenced To 7 Years in Prison For Stealing Credit Card Numbers "https://www.voiceofgreyhat.com/2012/08/Hacker-Sentenced-To-7Years-in-Prison-For-Stealing-CreditCard.html</a>