The Press Association reports: A teenager has appeared in court accused of hacking the internet company TalkTalk to obtain customer data before asking for a six-figure blackmail payment in bitcoin. Daniel Kelley, 19, appeared at Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday accused of demanding 465 bitcoins, worth about £216,000, from the company after allegedly carrying out…
Category: Hack
Member of Syrian Electronic Army pleads guilty in U.S. court
Susan Heavey reports: A computer hacker sympathetic to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government pleaded guilty for his role as a middleman in an extortion scheme targeting U.S. media outlets and governments, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday. It said in a statement that Peter Romar, 37, was a member of the Syrian Electronic…
Two more hacks with ransom demands, but is anyone paying? Part 2.
As noted in Part 1, hackers continue to issue ransom demands, but going to the media to put pressure on hacked entities does not seem to have improved their chances of convincing their victims to pay the ransom. In Part 1, I reported on what appears to be a hack of VI Pay, Inc., a payroll…
Two more hacks with ransom demands, but is anyone paying? Part 1.
Over the past few months, DataBreaches.net has reported on a number of hacking incidents where the attackers demanded ransom if the victims did not want to see their data publicly dumped or put up for sale. Some of the incidents involved TheDarkOverlord, who attacked a number of clinics in the healthcare sector. Other incidents involved a self-described…
California congressman sues opponent, alleging violations of CFAA
Another civil case invoking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Jeff Matsuura and Craig Blakeley of Alliance Law Group, LLC write: Representative Mike Honda of California has sued his campaign opponent alleging violations of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The CFAA provides for both criminal and civil actions. Although we often focus on the criminal prosecutions…
UK Man Involved in 2012 Yahoo Hack Sentenced to Prison
Eduard Kovacs reports: The U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) announced last week that one of the members of an international cybercrime group has been given a two-year jail sentence. The individual, 23-year-old Nazariy Markuta from London, is believed to be a member of a hacker collective known as “D33Ds Company.” In 2012, the group leaked more than…