December 5, 2024 at 07:09PM Charles O. Parks III pleaded guilty to running a large-scale cryptojacking operation that defrauded cloud service providers out of $3.5 million to mine nearly $970,000 in cryptocurrency. He used various aliases, abused services, laundered profits, and faces up to 20 years in prison upon sentencing. **Meeting Takeaways: Charles O. Parks … Read more
November 25, 2024 at 02:29PM Nicholas Michael Kloster, a 31-year-old from Kansas City, was indicted for hacking into a health club and a nonprofit to promote his cybersecurity services. His actions caused $5,000 in damages and included unauthorized access, data manipulation, and identity theft. He faces potential sentences totaling 15 years in prison if convicted. … Read more
November 19, 2024 at 01:21PM Russian cybercriminal Evgenii Ptitsyn, 42, appeared in a Maryland court after extradition from South Korea. He faces charges for operating the Phobos ransomware, allegedly extorting over $16 million from more than 1,000 victims globally. He could face significant prison time if convicted on multiple counts, including wire fraud and extortion. … Read more
November 18, 2024 at 02:51PM Evgenii Ptitsyn, a Russian suspected of leading the Phobos ransomware operation, has been extradited from South Korea to the U.S. He faces multiple cybercrime charges for his involvement in extorting over $16 million from more than 1,000 entities by coordinating ransomware attacks since November 2020. ### Meeting Takeaways: 1. **Extradition … Read more
November 13, 2024 at 01:52PM The Department of Justice has unsealed an indictment against two suspected hackers who compromised over 165 organizations using Snowflake cloud storage services. **Meeting Notes Takeaways:** 1. **Indictment Unsealed**: The Department of Justice has publicly released the indictment against two suspected hackers. 2. **Nature of Breach**: The hackers are believed to … Read more
November 3, 2024 at 01:38PM The US Department of Justice charged six individuals in two fraud schemes involving IT contracts, defrauding the government of millions. The operations targeted various federal agencies, including the Department of Defense. In related news, an e-commerce fraud ring was disrupted, and Iranian hackers are using AI for new cyber threats. … Read more
October 23, 2024 at 07:33PM Pennsylvania State University will pay $1.25 million to settle Justice Department claims of misleading cybersecurity compliance. Allegations stem from a whistleblower lawsuit, stating Penn State failed to implement required NIST security standards for sensitive data in contracts with the Pentagon and NASA. The settlement does not imply guilt. **Meeting Takeaways: … Read more
October 4, 2024 at 03:49PM The US Department of Justice and Microsoft collaborated to take down over 100 domains linked to the Russian hacker group Star Blizzard, known for targeting journalists, non-governmental organizations, and Russia experts. This action aims to disrupt their cyber activities and protect against potential election interference. However, experts anticipate continued threats … Read more
October 3, 2024 at 12:36PM Two Chinese nationals, Haotian Sun and Pengfei Xue, along with co-conspirators Wen Jin Gao and Dian Luo, were sentenced to prison for scamming Apple out of over $2.5 million by exchanging more than 6,000 counterfeit iPhones for authentic ones. They exploited Apple’s replacement policy, used fake identification cards and driver’s … Read more
September 30, 2024 at 04:48PM The US Justice Department has charged three members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with running a cyber campaign to impact the upcoming US presidential election. They are accused of conducting hacks against political campaigns, officials, and media members. The attackers used spear-phishing techniques targeting senior government officials and journalists, … Read more