U.S. DOJ Charges 54 in ATM Jackpotting Scheme Using Ploutus Malware

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ this week announced the indictment of 54 individuals in connection with a multi-million dollar ATM jackpotting scheme. The large-scale conspiracy involved deploying malware named Ploutus to hack into automated teller machines ATMs across the U.S. and force them ...

Iranian Hacker Pleads Guilty in $19 Million Robbinhood Ransomware Attack on Baltimore

An Iranian national has pleaded guilty in the U.S. over his involvement in an international ransomware and extortion scheme involving the Robbinhood ransomware. Sina Gholinejad aka Sina Ghaaf, 37, and his co-conspirators are said to have breached the computer networks of various organizations in...

Digital rampage saw ex-Disney employee remove nut allergy info from menus, dox co-workers, and more

A former Disney employee, Michael Scheuer, will serve three years in prison for computer fraud and aggravated identity theft after a digital sabotage campaign against his ex-employer. In addition to his sentence, he must pay nearly US$688,000 in restitution. Scheuer, a former menu production...

Spyware Maker NSO Group Found Liable for Hacking WhatsApp

A judge has found that NSO Group, maker of the Pegasus spyware, has violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by hacking WhatsApp in order to spy on people using it. Jon Penney and I wrote a legal paper on the case...

U.S. Charges Chinese Hacker for Exploiting Zero-Day in 81,000 Sophos Firewalls

The U.S. government on Tuesday unsealed charges against a Chinese national for allegedly breaking into thousands of Sophos firewall devices globally in 2020. Guan Tianfeng aka gbigmao and gxiaomao, who is said to have worked at Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company, Limited, has been...

U.K. Hacker Charged in $3.75 Million Insider Trading Scheme Using Hacked Executive Emails

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ has charged a 39-year-old U.K. national for perpetrating a hack-to-trade fraud scheme that netted him nearly $3.75 million in illegal profits. Robert Westbrook of London was arrested last week and is expected to be extradited to the U.S. to face charges related ...

Man certifies his own (fake) death after hacking into registry system using stolen identity

A 39-year-old man has been sentenced to 81 months in jail after hacking governments systems to fake his own death to dodge paying child support. Yes, you read that right. The press release by the US Attorneys Office, Eastern District of Kentucky, paints a detailed picture of what went down. In...

E-Root Marketplace Admin Extradited to US on Computer Fraud Charge

By Waqas E-Root marketplace had its domain seized in 2020. This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: E-Root Marketplace Admin Extradited to US on Computer Fraud Charge...

US dangles $10 million reward for information about Cl0p ransomware gang

The US Department of States national security rewards program, Rewards for Justice RFJ, is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information linking the Cl0p ransomware gang, or any other malicious cyber actors targeting US critical infrastructure, to a foreign government. Advisory from...

Google takes CryptBot to the wood shed

Google is in the midst of a legal campaign designed to take down the creators of a very persistent piece of malware called CryptBot. This malware, which Google claims compromised roughly 670k computers, set about infecting users of the Chrome browser. Unfortunately for the malware campaign...

PSA: Intentionally Leaving Backdoors in Your Code Can Lead to Fines and Jail Time

In the cybersecurity field, we talk a lot about threat actors and vulnerable code, but what doesn’t get discussed enough is intentional vulnerabilities and becoming your own threat actor. Even when making decisions with the best of intentions, it is possible to work against your own best interest...

WhatsApp lawsuit against NSO Group greenlit by Supreme Court

On Monday, the US Supreme Court denied the NSO Group's petition for a writ of certiorari, a request to the high court to review its case, signaling that Meta's WhatsApp can go ahead with its case against the Israeli-based company behind the Pegasus spyware. The court didn't explain why it refused...

FBI Charges 6, Seizes 48 Domains Linked to DDoS-for-Hire Service Platforms

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ on Wednesday announced the seizure of 48 domains that offered services to conduct distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks on behalf of other threat actors, effectively lowering the barrier to entry for malicious activity. It also charged six suspects – Jeremi...

4 times students compromised school cybersecurity

For many students school can be a tough time, and we've all heard stories about bored or frustrated kids compromising school cybersecurity to change grades. Sometimes the students are celebrated, and other times it ends in them being expelled from school, or even prosecuted. Of course, these acts...

When good-faith hacking gets people arrested, with Harley Geiger: Lock and Code S03E14

When Lock and Code host David Ruiz talks to hackers—especially good-faith hackers who want to dutifully report any vulnerabilities they uncover in their day-to-day work—he often hears about one specific law in hushed tones of fear: the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Ac...

What Counts as “Good Faith Security Research?”

The U.S. Department of Justice DOJ recently revised its policy on charging violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act CFAA, a 1986 law that remains the primary statute by which federal prosecutors pursue cybercrime cases. The new guidelines state that prosecutors should avoid charging securit...

U.S. Charges Ukrainian Hacker for Kaseya Attack; Seizes $6 Million from REvil Gang

The U.S. government on Monday charged a Ukrainian suspect, arrested in Poland last month, with deploying REvil ransomware to target multiple businesses and government entities in the country, including perpetrating the attack against software company Kaseya, marking the latest action to crack dow...

US offers huge reward in fight against state-sponsored cybercriminals

The US Department of State has announced that its Rewards for Justice RFJ program is now offering: …up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of any person who, while acting at the direction or under the control of a foreign government, participates in malicious...

The Supreme Court Narrowed the CFAA

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court just narrowed the scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: In a ruling delivered today, the court sided with Van Buren and overturned his 18-month conviction. In a 37-page opinion written and delivered by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court explained that the...

Security Vulnerabilities in Cellebrite

Moxie Marlinspike has an intriguing blog post about Cellebrite, a tool used by police and others to break into smartphones. Moxie got his hands on one of the devices, which seems to be a pair of Windows software packages and a whole lot of connecting cables. According to Moxie, the software is...