Yandex Employee Caught Selling Access to Users' Email Inboxes

Russian Dutch-domiciled search engine, ride-hailing and email service provider Yandex on Friday disclosed a data breach that compromised 4,887 email accounts of its users. The company blamed the incident on an unnamed employee who had been providing unauthorized access to the users' mailboxes for...

NFL, NBA Players Hacked in Would-Be Cyber-Slam-Dunk

NFL and NBA athletes whose social-media accounts were taken over have been thrown the ball of justice. Multiple professional and semi-pro athletes were victimized by two men who infiltrated their personal accounts, according to testimony in federal court on Wednesday. Trevontae Washington of...

British Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years for Blackmailing U.S. Companies

A UK man who threatened to publicly release stolen confidential information unless the victims agreed to fulfill his digital extortion demands has finally pleaded guilty on Monday at U.S. federal district court in St. Louis, Missouri. Nathan Francis Wyatt , 39, who is a key member of the infamous...

British Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years for Blackmailing U.S. Companies

A UK man who threatened to publicly release stolen confidential information unless the victims agreed to fulfill his digital extortion demands has finally pleaded guilty on Monday at U.S. federal district court in St. Louis, Missouri. Nathan Francis Wyatt , 39, who is a key member of the infamous...

U.S. Offers Reward of $10M for Info Leading to Discovery of Election Meddling

The U.S. government is concerned about foreign interference in the 2020 election, so much so that it will offer a reward of up to $10 million for anyone providing information that could lead to tracking down potential cybercriminals aiming to sabotage the November vote. The U.S. Department of...

Adversarial Machine Learning and the CFAA

I just co-authored a paper on the legal risks of doing machine learning research, given the current state of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: Abstract: Adversarial Machine Learning is booming with ML researchers increasingly targeting commercial ML systems such as those used in Facebook, Tesla,...

Capital One Hacker Also Accused of Hacking 30 More Companies and CryptoJacking

Former Amazon employee Paige Thompson, who was arrested last month in relation to the Capital One data breach, has been accused of hacking not only the U.S. credit card issuer, but also more than 30 other companies. An indictment unsealed on Wednesday revealed that Thompson not just stole data fr...

'GozNym' Banking Malware Gang Dismantled by International Law Enforcement

In a joint effort by several law enforcement agencies from 6 different countries, officials have dismantled a major global organized cybercrime network behind GozNym banking malware. GozNym banking malware is responsible for stealing nearly $100 million from over 41,000 victims across the globe,...

The Law Being Used to Prosecute Julian Assange Is Broken

Opinion: Julian Assange is being prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a minimally defined statute that can have maximally destructive consequences...

FBI Denies Service to 15 DDoS-for-Hire Sites, Charges Operators

The Justice Department has taken 15 internet domains associated with DDoS-for-hire services offline, and has filed charges against three defendants who allegedly ran them. DDoS for hire or DDoS-as-a-service operations make it simple for any layperson to carry out DDoS attacks, flooding targets wi...

Don’t ever use a VPN without paying attention to these five things

By John Mason Ryan Lin was just recently sentenced to 17 years in prison. He was sentenced for committing a range of crimes including cyberstalking, computer fraud and abuse, aggravated identity theft, and distribution of child pornography. These are all serious crimes that I in no way support or...

Alleged ‘Satori’ IoT Botnet Operator Sought Media Spotlight, Got Indicted

A 20-year-old from Vancouver, Washington was indicted last week on federal hacking charges and for allegedly operating the "Satori" botnet, a malware strain unleashed last year that infected hundreds of thousands of wireless routers and other "Internet of Things" IoT devices. This outcome is hard...

Two Romanian Hackers Extradited to the U.S. Over $18 Million Vishing Scam

Two Romanian hackers have been extradited to the United States to face 31 criminal charges including computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Described as "international computer hackers" by the United States Department of Justice, Teodor Laurent...

Two Romanian Hackers Extradited to the U.S. Over $18 Million Vishing Scam

Two Romanian hackers have been extradited to the United States to face 31 criminal charges including computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Described as "international computer hackers" by the United States Department of Justice, Teodor Laurent...

Romanian Hackers Extradited to U.S. over $18M Vishing Scam

A pair of Romanian hackers have been extradited to the U.S. after allegedly bilking unwitting victims out of more than $18 million in an elaborate voice- and SMS-phishing i.e., vishing/smishing scheme. Teodor Laurentiu Costea and Robert Codrut Dumitrescu were named in the 31-count federal grand...

Alleged creator of Fruitfly indicted for 13 years of spying

Way back at the start of last year, we took a look at something called Fruitfly, a Mac backdoor using old code that had been around for a long time and could deep breath upload files to computers, record images and video, snoop around in victims' information, take screenshots, and also log...

WannaCry Hero Arrested, One of Two Charged with Distribution of Kronos Malware

Marcus Hutchins, the researcher hailed for his work in blunting the WannaCry ransomware outbreak in May, was arrested Wednesday in Las Vegas and charged with creating and distributing the Kronos banking malware. Hutchins, known online as Malwaretech, is a U.K. citizen and arrived in Las Vegas las...

New Bill Seeks Basic IoT Security Standards

Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate today introduced a bill that would set baseline security standards for the government's purchase and use of a broad range of Internet-connected devices, including computers, routers and security cameras. The legislation, which also seeks to remedy some widely-perceive...

Hacker Who Used Linux Botnet to Send Millions of Spam Emails Pleads Guilty

A Russian man accused of infecting tens of thousands of computer servers worldwide to generate millions in illicit profit has finally entered a guilty plea in the United States and is going to face sentencing in August. Maxim Senakh, 41, of Velikii Novgorod, Russia, pleaded guilty in a US federal...

Russian Hacker Pleads Guilty to Developing and Distributing Citadel Trojan

A Russian man accused of developing and distributing the Citadel Banking Trojan, which infected nearly 11 Million computers globally and caused over $500 Million in losses, has finally pleaded guilty to charges of computer fraud. Mark Vartanyan, 29, who was very well known as "Kolypto," pleaded...