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US citizen pleads guilty to advising DPRK on cryptocurrency • The Register

September 28, 2021/in Computer Security

A US citizen has admitted to helping the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to establish cryptocurrency capabilities and faces up to 20 years jail for his actions.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) on Monday revealed that Virgil Griffith, a US citizen resident in Singapore, hatched plans in 2018 to help an individual in the hermit kingdom mine cryptocurrency.

In 2019 Griffith visited North Korea and spoke at a local cryptocurrency conference. The DoJ alleges that Griffth and his co-conspirators “provided instruction on how the DPRK could use blockchain and cryptocurrency technology to launder money and evade sanctions” and “how blockchain technology such as ‘smart contracts’ could be used to benefit the DPRK, including in nuclear weapons negotiations with the United States”.

The DoJ alleges that after the conference, Griffith “attempted to recruit other US citizens to travel to North Korea and provide similar services to DPRK persons, and attempted to broker introductions for the DPRK to other cryptocurrency and blockchain service providers”.

North Korea stands accused of multiple attacks on cryptocurrency infrastructure, conducted to help it secure funds it cannot access thanks to international sanctions imposed in protest at the DPRK’s human rights record.

Or, perhaps more accurately, its record of terrible human rights abuses – the United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea found that the nation’s government has conducted “systematic, widespread, and gross human rights violations, some amounting to crimes against humanity”.

The USA therefore prohibits exports of almost anything to the DPRK without a licence. And such a licence is not granted easily.

Almost every nation on Earth sanctions the DPRK for those activities, its belligerent pursuit of nuclear weapons,…

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Group pleads guilty to running bulletproof hosting service for criminal gangs, malware payloads

May 10, 2021/in Computer Security

Four individuals have pleaded guilty to running a bulletproof hosting service used by criminals to launch cyberattacks.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said that Russian nationals Aleksandr Grichishkin and Andrei Skvortsov, alongside Lithuanian Aleksandr Skorodumov and Pavel Stassi, from Estonia, operated a bulletproof host between 2009 and 2015.

Bulletproof hosting is a service in which a private online infrastructure is offered, and operators will generally turn a blind eye to what customers use their rented domains for.

Copyright infringement notices are ignored, privacy is marketed as a feature of such services, and bulletproof offerings are the go-to for criminal groups seeking the infrastructure to host malware, establish command-and-control (C2) servers, and host illegal content including malicious software and child pornography.

However, being willing to ignore the transgressions of clients does not mean that law enforcement will take the same stance, and in this case, the group has been charged with conspiring to engage in a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO).

According to the DoJ, the group rented out servers and domains that were used in criminal campaigns including attacks against US companies and financial organizations.

Malware including the Zeus and SpyEye Trojans, Citadel Trojan and credential stealer, and the Blackhole exploit kit — used in drive-by downloads to serve payloads to victims — were among those hosted by the bulletproof hosting provider.

“A key service provided by the defendants was helping their clients to evade detection by law enforcement and continue their crimes uninterrupted; the defendants did so by monitoring sites used to blocklist technical infrastructure used for crime, moving “flagged” content to new infrastructure, and registering all such infrastructure under false or stolen identities,” prosecutors say.

All four have pleaded guilty to one count of the RICO charge in the US District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan and they may each face up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing has been set individually between June and…

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Former Trillium Health employee pleads guilty to hacking coworkers

April 5, 2021/in Computer Security

WHECTV

Created: April 05, 2021 02:43 PM

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — The former Trillium Health employee accused of hacking into computer files of multiple co-workers pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and related activity in connection with computers.

Ameer Elashmawy, 28, was an IT coordinator at Trillium when a supervisor found files on his computer with compromising photos of co-workers, as well as the user names and passwords for their social media accounts.

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Tesla Motors, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) – Russian Hacker Pleads Guilty To Offering $1M Bitcoin Bribe To Tesla Employee

March 22, 2021/in Computer Security

A Russian national who attempted to hack Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) last year and introduce malware to compromise the company has pleaded guilty in the U.S. and could spend up to ten months in prison, according to a report by The Associated Press.

What Happened: Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov pleaded guilty to conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer, as per the report.

A federal lawsuit was filed against Kriuchkov in Nevada last August. The Russian national was accused of offering a $1 million bribe in Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) to an employee at a company in Nevada – identified then only as Company A – to surreptitiously insert malware into the company’s systems.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk later confirmed that the automaker was the subject of a hacking attempt by a Russian national and his co-conspirators.

Kriuckkov said the insider job would be camouflaged with a distributed denial of service attack on plant computers from outside in order to overwhelm the servers with junk traffic, as per the Associated Press, which cited court documents. The hackers then planned to extort Tesla for a ransom payment.

See Also: Why Tesla’s Charging Stations Are A Key Advantage For Its Future

Why It Matters: The data breach shows how companies need to take more effective steps to deal with the threat of cyberattacks that have increased in intensity amid the pandemic. It also shows how hackers could take data from companies, including Tesla, hostage in exchange for ransom funds.

Earlier this month, Tesla was among the several companies that were impacted by a massive security-camera breach, with hackers gaining access to live footage from the electric car maker’s factories and warehouses.

Price Action: Tesla shares closed about 0.3% higher on Friday at $654.87.

Click here to check out Benzinga’s EV Hub for the latest electric vehicles news

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