A new paper on Sodinokibi (REvil) ransomware operators by Advanced Intelligence begins: Just about one year ago, the makers of the infamous GandCrab ransomware announced their retirement, having reportedly earned an astonishing $2 billion since their entry into the ransomware market in January 2018. The vacuum was quickly filled, however. Forensic and malware evidence was…
Category: Of Note
Trump confirms 2018 US cyberattack on Russian troll farm
Maggie Miller reports: President Trump on Friday confirmed for the first time that the U.S. launched a cyberattack on the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) in 2018. Trump confirmed the attack in a two-part interview with The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen. When asked whether the U.S. had launched an attack on the IRA — a troll farm that led…
Yevgeniy Nikulin convicted of 2012 LinkedIn, Dropbox, Formspring hacks
It took a San Francisco jury six hours to decide once they finally got the case that started in March but was interrupted by the pandemic. Yesterday afternoon, they convicted Yevgeniy Nikulin, 32, of hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Formspring in 2012. Nikulin, who had pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 29. The government was…
Germany seizes server hosting pilfered “Blue Leaks” U.S. police files
Frank Bajak reports: At the behest of the U.S. government, German authorities have seized a computer server that hosted a huge cache of files from scores of U.S. federal, state and local law enforcement agencies obtained in a Houston data breach last month. The server was being used by a WikiLeaks-like data transparency collective called…
Lawsuit against Pearson over data breach scuttled by injury claims
Sara Merken reports: A Minnesota federal judge has granted a bid by subsidiaries of education company Pearson to dismiss a lawsuit brought over a data breach that resulted in the unauthorized access of personal information from 13,000 school and university accounts. Chief U.S. District Judge John Tunheim in Minneapolis on Monday found that a legal…
Citizen of Kazakhstan known as “fxmsp” charged with computer fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy for hacking hundreds of corporate networks in more than 40 countries worldwide
Wow. There will be a lot of media coverage about this one, but let’s start with the DOJ’s press announcement and indictment: Prolific hacker sold network access to other cybercriminals on various underground forums, enabling various further cyberattacks Seattle – An indictment was unsealed today in the Western District of Washington charging a citizen of…