Author Archives: Jeff Stone

Fighting, screaming as alleged ATM scammer known as ‘The Shark’ is arrested in Mexico

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Police in Mexico have arrested the alleged head of a financial fraud operation that used corrupt ATMs to steal more than $1 billion from tourists in recent years. Florian Tudor, a Romanian man perhaps better known as “The Shark,” was apprehended on Thursday when officials from Mexico’s attorney general’s office took him into custody. The incident erupted in wrestling, shouting and authorities carrying Tudor out of the building by his arms and legs, according to video published by news outlets in Mexico City. Mexico’s federal law enforcement suggested that Tudor’s associates tried to assault a police officer before also being arrested. Así fue la detención de Florian Tudor, líder de la mafia rumana en las Oficinas de la FGR en la CDMX Video: Especial pic.twitter.com/jZM2zcM4Mx — El Universal (@El_Universal_Mx) May 27, 2021 The fisticuffs mark the latest twist in a years-long crime spree that law enforcement officials and international journalists […]

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White House taps Matt Olsen, Uber security boss and former NSA lawyer, to lead key DOJ division

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The White House has nominated Matt Olsen to run the Justice Department’s National Security Division, a move that would put the Uber security executive and former civil servant at the helm of some of the most sensitive cases in the U.S.  Olsen, who now works as Uber’s chief trust and security officer, previously worked as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center during the Obama administration and served as the general counsel of the National Security Agency. The Biden administration announced his nomination on Wednesday. If confirmed by the Senate, Olsen will take over a key division of the Justice Department focused on counterintelligence, terrorism, foreign interference in U.S. elections and, increasingly, cybersecurity matters. He would replace John Demers, an assistant attorney general who has focused heavily on countering alleged Chinese espionage and theft of intellectual property in the U.S.  The Biden administration tapped Olsen as national security officials reckon […]

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Russian scammer ‘Kusok,’ who stole $1.5 million via tax fraud, sentenced to 5 years

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A U.S. federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a Russian man to five years in prison for his role in a scheme to use malicious software to steal the equivalent of $1.5 million in tax returns meant for American taxpayers.  Anton Bogdanov, 35, worked as part of a small crew that used vulnerabilities in accounting software to redirect tax refunds into their own accounts. By logging into the software, Bogdanov and his associates would access customer information and change the recipient information, directing money from the Internal Revenue Service to debit cards under their control, according to an indictment.  Bogdanov, who was better known by the alias “Kusok,” lived in Russia during the crime spree, and would take a cut of the stolen money. He was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand in November 2018 while waiting to board a flight to Russia, becoming one of a number of accused cybercriminals whom U.S. […]

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US commission urges AI development amid global security concerns

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American technology companies racing to develop and adopt artificial intelligence technology should do so responsibly and safely, according to a longtime security expert who has spent years studying the issue.  In a conversation on Thursday during A.I. Week, an event produced by Scoop News Group, Yll Bajraktari, the executive director of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, urged U.S. citizens to think carefully about the ethical use of powerful new technologies. The advice comes after Bajraktari’s commission published a report advising the U.S. government on issues to consider around the use of A.I.  The commission was established in 2018 to examine America’s ability to defend against malicious automation, and understand how the U.S. might best move forward in understanding such technology. In a report published March of this year, the group warned that the U.S. is not sufficiently prepared to compete with China on the issue.  “The United States […]

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Artificial intelligence could accelerate breach notification time, expert says

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Faster data breach notification time is emerging as a reliable application of artificial intelligence in the cybersecurity sector, a development that could help other industries better understand their own use of smarter technologies, a leading subject matter expert said on Monday.  Dr. Frederic Lemieux, faculty director and professor of the practice for applied intelligence at Georgetown University, suggested that more efficient pattern recognition already is helping global companies spot anomalies in wide swaths of data. Unusual behaviors — such as an employee logging on to sensitive networks at odd hours, or an email attachment including nefarious data — are more likely to raise a red flag, pointing human analysts to possible security issues.  “It’s simple,” Lemieux said during A.I. Week, an event produced by Scoop News Group. “The costs of cybersecurity are prohibitive and companies are facing situations where the average cost of a data breach in the United States […]

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As Methbot trial gets underway, prosecutors say a former scammer will testify against alleged ringleader

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Nearly three years after he was arrested in a Belgium apartment, Aleksander Zhukov was seated in a Brooklyn courtroom this week to face charges of running a complex fraud scheme that netted millions of dollars.  Zhukov, a Russian national, allegedly functioned as the ringleader of a scheme to use traditional cybercrime techniques to carry out a larger advertising fraud conspiracy, known as Methbot, that the U.S. Department of Justice says netted some $7 million between 2014 and 2016. The trial, scheduled to take place in the coming weeks in a Brooklen federal courtroom, is slated to include testimony from a range of FBI agents, cybersecurity executives and, as the prosecution said on Wednesday, a cooperating witness who worked with Zhukov to carry out the work.  The ruse involved Zhukov’s use of a fake advertising company, which he used to charge marketing firms to run ads, prosecutors said during their opening […]

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Twitter restricts account of Intrusion Truth, which doxxes suspected Chinese hackers

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Twitter on Tuesday moved to restrict the account of a mysterious group that has published details on suspected state-sponsored hackers from China. The group, Intrusion Truth, had spent recent days hinting that it would go public with new allegations against possible hackers, teasing followers with messages like “Watch this space” and “Who’s excited? We are.” The identity of the person or group behind Intrusion Truth has remained elusive since it started publishing information in 2017, including missives about how Chinese technology companies allegedly supported espionage on Beijing’s behalf. Intrusion Truth’s Twitter account suggested it would publish new information on Wednesday about “hackers based in Chengdu,” a city in southwestern China. Twitter, though, plastered a warning on the account, saying that the account was “temporarily restricted” because “there has been some unusual activity.” Users still could access the page at press time Tuesday, though they would need to click through to […]

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Crypto scammer who threatened victims’ families pleads guilty, faces 2-year minimum

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A plan to steal cryptocurrency and hard-to-find social media accounts has ended with one schemer set to spend at least two years in prison.  Eric Meiggs, a 23-year-old Massachusetts man, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to participating in a plan to steal social media account names and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. Meiggs and a team of associates used SIM swapping, a practice in which scammers take control of victims’ phone numbers, to try to steal more than $530,000 in cryptocurrency from 10 people, DOJ said.  SIM swapping is the process by which attackers convince a victim’s phone carrier to transfer control of a phone number to an attacker, or group of scammers. From there, the intruders abuse access to that phone number to gather passwords, financial transactions or other sensitive data associated with that number. In recent years, thieves have prioritized […]

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European cops collected data from encrypted chat services for weeks prior to cocaine bust

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Breached encrypted messaging tools increasingly seem to provide European law enforcement agencies with a kind of roadmap to high profile drug busts.  Belgium’s Federal Police force on Monday said they had seized nearly 28 tons of cocaine with a street value of 1.4 billion euros ($1.65 billion) after officials accessed an encrypted messaging service, as CNN first reported. The activity came after police said in March they had decrypted half a billion messages sent via the Sky ECC service, and arrested 48 people. The cocaine seizure appears to be the result of that initial investigation, as officials say they spent weeks tracking messages and gathering information about cocaine shipments before intercepting packages at the port of Antwerp.  It was only the latest example of European police accessing hard-to-crack technology to collect evidence about suspected criminals, though.  Dutch police working with French officials last year broke into another messaging service, EncroChat, […]

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European cops collected data from encrypted chat services for weeks prior to cocaine bust

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Breached encrypted messaging tools increasingly seem to provide European law enforcement agencies with a kind of roadmap to high profile drug busts.  Belgium’s Federal Police force on Monday said they had seized nearly 28 tons of cocaine with a street value of 1.4 billion euros ($1.65 billion) after officials accessed an encrypted messaging service, as CNN first reported. The activity came after police said in March they had decrypted half a billion messages sent via the Sky ECC service, and arrested 48 people. The cocaine seizure appears to be the result of that initial investigation, as officials say they spent weeks tracking messages and gathering information about cocaine shipments before intercepting packages at the port of Antwerp.  It was only the latest example of European police accessing hard-to-crack technology to collect evidence about suspected criminals, though.  Dutch police working with French officials last year broke into another messaging service, EncroChat, […]

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