Tag Archive for: Indicts

Iran indicts 14 for scientist’s killing

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None of the suspects names or nationalities were revealed, although the Islamic Republic continues to blame Israel for the assassination of Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. 

By Erin Viner

Tehran’s Attorney-General Ali Salehi has announced that indictments have been issued “14 persons” involved in the that the Islamic Republic has attributed to Israel.

The individuals have been charged with “corruption on the earth,” “involvement in intelligence and espionage cooperation with the Zionist regime,” “collusion with the purpose of undermining the security of the country,” and “action against national security,” the Tehran Times cited the top prosecutor as saying.

Fakhrizadeh, who was considered the father of Iran’s nuclear program, served as Iran’s Deputy Defense Minister after having been a General in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physics. He was killed in a multi-pronged terrorist attack on 27 November 2020  while driving with his wife to their country home just outside Tehran.

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani has publicly blamed on “terrorists from the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK), Jerusalem and the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency. Other Ayatollah Regime officials have at various times accused Western intelligence operatives or Saudi Arabia with involvement in the attack.

The Islamic Republic has long threatened to avenge Fakhrizadeh’s killing.

In September 2021, the New York Times has published a report alleging that Israel assassinated the senior nuclear scientist with a state-of-the-art remotely controlled “killer robot.”

According to the article, Israel had held Fakhrizadeh in its sights for at least 14 years as part of its ongoing campaign to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The following year, the paper said that then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert played a recording in Jerusalem for visiting-President George W. Bush of what 3 people who heard the tape said was Fakhrizadeh speaking “explicitly about his ongoing effort to develop a nuclear warhead.” While exposing a secret Iranian nuclear…

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US indicts heart doctor for allegedly spearheading high-profile ransomware operations

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A 55-year-old Venezuelan cardiologist has been charged in the US over allegedly being the mastermind behind the Jigsaw and Thanos ransomware operations.

Charges against Moises Luis Zagala Gonzalez were unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on Monday and concern his alleged use and sale of ransomware, in addition to his support of and profit-sharing with other cyber criminals.

Zagala resides in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela and also has citizenship in France. He is alleged to have created multiple high-profile ransomware tools in his spare time while primarily being a practising doctor.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) source posed as a prospective cyber criminal and was able to discover how Zagala’s operation ran, how he generated multiple revenue streams, and how he ‘coached’ the cyber criminals into being more successful using the tools he created.

Zagala is alleged to have created the Jigsaw ransomware strain as well as the Thanos ‘ransomware builder’ – an application that allowed users to build their own ransomware program to be used alone or sold to the wider community.

Screenshot of the Thanos application

The Thanos application presented users with a GUI and an assortment of checkboxes to enable and disable certain features so effective ransomware programs could be built with little technical knowledge.

Such features included a data stealer that allowed users to select which types of files were stolen from a victim, an anti-VM feature that prevented researchers from loading it into a virtual machine for analysis and a self-delete function that destroyed the program after its use had become exhausted.

Through the FBI’s source, the Bureau was able to understand how Thanos was sold through two licensing models.

Prospective users could either pay a single up-front fee for a limited license and have access to the program for a set time, or enrol into an affiliate program which saw the user receive a lifetime license in return for giving Zagala a portion of the profit generated from the ransomware it created.

The Depart of Justice (DoJ) said Zagala owned a server in Charlotte, North Carolina that checked if a user’s license was valid or not.

After the FBI source request to join Zagala’s affiliate…

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US indicts multiple call centers for IRS, Social Security scams

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call-center

The U.S. Department of Justice has announced the indictment of several India-based call centers and their directors for targeting Americans with Social Security, IRS, and loan phone call scams.

The call centers allegedly placed scam robocalls that were rerouted through an already-indicted VoIP service provider to make it appear as if the calls were coming from U.S.-based entities.

As the phone numbers appearing on caller I.D. originated from the U.S., it increased the chances of the call recipient answering and the rates of success for the scam.

The call centers and their directors listed in the indictment are:

  • Manu Chawla and Achivers A Spirit of BPO Solutions Private Limited;
  • Sushil Sachdeva, Nitin Kumar Wadwani, Swarndeep Singh, a/k/a Sawaran Deep Kohli, and Fintalk Global;
  • Dinesh Manohar Sachdev and Global Enterprises; 
  • Gaje Singh Rathore and Shivaay Communication Private Limited;
  • Sanket Modi and SM Technomine Private Limited; and
  • Rajiv Solanki and Technomind Info Solutions.

Multiple scam themes

Most calls followed a pattern that aimed to cause emotional distress to the recipient so that they do not think clearly and comply with the scammer’s demands.

For example, the scammers impersonated IRS employees who informed victims that they owe large amounts in back taxes. Other scams involved pretending to be from the Social Security Administrator, warning the victim that their social security numbers were involved in suspicious activity.

BleepingComputer previously reported on the Social Security scams, and you can hear an example of one of these robocalls below.

The ultimate goal was to scare victims into paying a “fee” to the government, which is usually in the form of a gift card or wire transfer, to evade legal trouble.

Another scam allegedly conducted by these call centers pretended to be loan offers with very favorable conditions.

The victims had to pay upfront fees to receive the loan, supposedly to demonstrate their ability to repay them, but these deposits went right into the scammers’ bank accounts.

“At times, the callers direct victims to provide their bank account information and make it appear as though they had deposited funds into the victims’ accounts. The…

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Justice Department indicts two men over ransomware scheme : NPR

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Attorney General Merrick Garland announced indictments against two men connected with ransomware attacks last summer.

Andrew Harnik/AP


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Andrew Harnik/AP

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced indictments against two men connected with ransomware attacks last summer.

Andrew Harnik/AP

The Justice Department says authorities have indicted two men in connection with a wave of ransomware attacks that, among other targets, shut down a meat processing company and an internet software provider earlier this year.

Attorney General Merrick Garland says one of the men, Yaroslav Vasinskyi, 22, a Ukrainian, was arrested when he traveled to Poland. The second man was identified as Yevgeniy Polyanin, a 28-year-old Russian. Garrick says the U.S. seized some $6.1 million from Polyanin.

Both men are said to be behind the REvil ransomware attacks that encrypt the data of companies and demand payments to unblock them.

REvil, A Notorious Ransomware Gang, Was Behind JBS Cyberattack, The FBI Says

Polyanin is believed to be abroad, the department says.

Garland asserted that the “U.S. government will continue to aggressively pursue the entire ransom ware ecosystem and increase our nations resilience to cyber threats.”

The Justice Department says that Vasinskyi was allegedly responsible for the July 2 ransomware attack against Kaseya, “which resulted in the encryption of data on computers of organizations around the world that used Kaseya software.”

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It says that Vasinskyi and Polyanin are charged in separate indictments with conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, substantive counts of…

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