Author Archives: Patrick Howell O'Neill

Ukrainian accused in cybercrime wave is considering trial in U.S., lawyer says

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A lawyer for an alleged player in one of the largest hacking schemes in history says he is talking with the Department of Justice about the possibility of bringing his client to the U.S. to stand trial. Mikhail Rytikov can’t leave his home country of Ukraine because he would risk becoming the latest Eastern European snatched up by Western law enforcement and charged in cybercrimes. The 30-year-old, who lives in Odessa on the coast of the Black Sea, allegedly participated in criminal schemes by running a profitable “bulletproof hosting” business — servers that police supposedly can’t block or access — known as AbdAllah. Ukraine doesn’t extradite its own citizens, so Rytikov is theoretically safe as long as he stays close to home. But he vehemently denies any wrongdoing, and apparently wants to set the record straight. His lawyer in the U.S., Arkady Bukh, told CyberScoop he is negotiating with the Department of Justice about the possibility of standing trial in […]

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As DDoS attacks increase in power, Cloudflare expands its offerings

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As distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks keep setting records, one of the companies that sells protection against them is expanding its product line to cover more than just web servers. Cloudflare announced a new product called Spectrum that will protect email, remote access, gaming services and more. “It’s DDoS protection for any box, container or [virtual machine] that connects to the internet,” the San Francisco company announced Thursday. “Whether it runs email, file transfer or a custom protocol, it can now get the full benefits of Cloudflare.” This year has already seen record-breaking denial-of-service attacks, with reports of as much as 1.7 terabits per second of junk web traffic hitting one U.S. company’s servers in early March, not long after a separate 1.35 Tbps attack. Google made a similar move in the DDoS protection market last month announced a suite of new security products for Google Cloud and G Suite customers including Cloud Armor, which is based […]

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Extradited Russian explores plea deal for massive LinkedIn breach

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The legal team for Yevgeniy Nikulin, the Russian hacker accused of stealing data from LinkedIn and other American tech firms, will explore a plea deal with the U.S. government, according to Nikulin’s lawyer, Arkady Bukh. “The likelihood of a trial is not very high,” Bukh said. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where Nikulin’s trial would occur, “has over a 99 percent conviction rate. We are not throwing clients under the bus,” Bukh said. Nikulin was extradited to the United States in March after a lengthy legal battle in the Czech Republic where he was first arrested in 2016. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in his first hearing in the San Francisco-based court. Nikulin is charged with breaches at LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring. He faces three counts of computer intrusion, two counts of intentional transmission of information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer; two counts of aggravated […]

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Celebgate hacker pleads guilty; all involved will now serve prison sentences

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A Connecticut man charged with breaking into 240 iCloud accounts as part of the Celebgate saga has pleaded guilty for his role in the crime. George Garofano, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information which carries a maximum prison term of five years. Sentencing has not yet been determined. He was released on $50,000 bond. The plea comes as another person charged in the ordeal, Emilio Herrera, was sentenced to 16 months in prison for his role in the crime. Herrera, 32, pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced last month. ‘Celebgate’ refers to an incident in August 2014 when nude photographs of celebrities were posted on public online forms. Garofano and Herrera carried out their attacks using spear phishing emails that appeared to be from Apple. “Garofano used the usernames and passwords to illegally access his victims’ iCloud accounts, which allowed him to steal […]

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Phishing attacks against mobile devices rise 85 percent annually

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People can talk about zero-day exploits, IoT botnets and APTs all day long, but often times the simplest approach for attackers remains the most effective. Phishing, which has long been the top attack vector against all manner of targets, is as pervasive and effective as ever. Hackers are increasingly targeting ubiquitous mobile devices and victims are readily falling for it. The rate at which victims are falling for phishing attacks on mobile has increased and average of 85 percent every year since 2011, according to new research from the mobile security company Lookout. “Mobile devices have opened a profitable new window of opportunity for criminals executing phishing attacks,” the researchers wrote. “Attackers are successfully circumventing existing phishing protection to target the mobile device. These attacks are highlighting security shortcomings and exposing sensitive data and personal information at an alarming rate.” The numbers add up. More than ever, internet users’ most important device — for work and personal data […]

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Facebook launches data abuse bounty program

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Facebook launched a data abuse bounty program on Tuesday in an effort to pay people that report apps which maliciously exploit user data. The new program comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepares to testify in front of congress about Facebook user data being abused by the political business firm Cambridge Analytica. Facebook’s new program is meant to catch big fish. To be eligible for a reward, a situation has to involve over 10,000 Facebook users, the company has to be completely unaware of the app, and it must clear a definition of a “definitive abuse of data.” The company defines that as apps buying or collecting their data through other means barred by Facebook’s terms of service. Bounties start at $500. Facebook compares the new program to their security bug bounty program, where they’ve paid out rewards of $40,000. “We’re looking for cases where people or groups have collected data using an app connected to […]

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Mirai IoT botnet variant likely used in January DDoS attack against Dutch banks

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A series of denial-of-service attacks against banks and government agencies in the Netherlands was carried out by an attacker using a Mirai botnet variant, according to new research from the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. The late January attacks temporarily brought down the networks of the Netherlands national tax office as well online banking services for ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank. The attackers themselves have been subject to much speculation but remain unknown at this time. Researchers said the malware used in the attacks may be linked to IoTroop, code that infects Internet of Things (IoT) devices like routers, televisions and cameras in order to send a tsunami of data at a target until the network buckles under the weight. IoTroop also shares a lot of source code with the infamous Mirai malware. “This is the first time we have observed an IoT botnet being used since Mirai and it may be the first time IoTroop has been used to […]

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The U.S. Air Force is outsourcing all traditional IT in order to build cybersecurity mission teams

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The U.S. Air Force is in the midst of a major technological shift where it is outsourcing virtually all day-to-day IT operations and retooling its workforce for cybersecurity. It’s a years-long process that now includes the biggest Microsoft Office 365 enterprise in the world, a $293 million Oracle cloud system and a $1 billion spend on a mass cloud migration over the next five years. Silicon Valley’s top companies are now running Air Force’s email servers so airman can be placed in Mission Defense Teams, sets of operators who do day-to-day, front line cybersecurity work at bases around the world. “We want our airmen transitioning from running email and boxes to focusing on cyber defense,”said William Marion, the Air Force’s deputy chief of information dominance and deputy chief information officer. “Every time we move to the cloud, the intent is to free up cyber operators for the Mission Defense Teams.” The role switch is described within […]

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Extradited Russian pleads not guilty to massive LinkedIn breach

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The Russian hacker who allegedly stole data from LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring pleaded not guilty in a U.S. federal court in San Francisco on Friday after his extradition from the Czech Republic. Yevgeniy Nikulin, 29, was the subject of a lengthy extradition battle between the U.S. and Russia, who both lobbied the Czech government to extradite the Russian citizen to their respective countries for criminal proceedings. Shortly after Nikulin was arrested and charged in 2016 with crimes that impacted over 100 million individuals, Russia followed with charges for stealing $3,450 via Webmoney in 2009. Beginning with his 2016 indictment, a tug-of-war commenced involving Washington D.C., Moscow, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and Czech President Milos Zeman. Babis pushed for a U.S. extradition while Zeman reportedly pushed for an outcome that favored Russia’s interests. The outcome may have reverberations in domestic Czech politics — Zeman and Babis are trying to form a new government — and the […]

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Lizard Squad’s ‘@fbiarelosers’ hacker gets smaller sentence for helping FBI arrest his friends

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It felt like Lizard Squad was everywhere for a few months in 2014. The group of teens knew how to get headlines: They picked special days to launch high-profile denial of service attacks against famous targets. The group was responsible for taking down some of the world’s biggest video game networks, including an attack on the PlayStation and XBox Live networks on Christmas Day. Other targets included Taylor Swift’s social media accounts, the Tor network and North Korea. The group tweeted and trolled online throughout their crusade, with one member even giving a live video interview to British media. Then some, including the now 20-year-old Maryland man Zachary Buchta, went on to form a second similar group known as PoodleCorp. That outfit ran DDoS-for-hire services named PoodleStresser. An unknown hacker eventually breached PoodleStresser and arrests followed. Buchta, who was behind the Twitter account @fbiarelosers, pleaded guilty last December to conspiracy to commit damage to protected computers. On Tuesday, he was […]

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