Category Archives: alphabay

WannaCry’s bitcoins were converted to Monero, researchers say

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Three months after WannaCry impacted more than 300,000 computers in over 150 countries, the bitcoins paid by victims have been exchanged for Monero, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that’s seen a spike in popularity and price over the last year, according to researchers at the Italian cryptocurrency intelligence firm Neutrino. Beginning on Wednesday night, a Twitter bot set up by the business blog Quartz watched as money was drained from the wallet. The first such transaction can be seen below: 🚨 7.34128314 BTC ($20,055.52 USD) has just been withdrawn from a bitcoin wallet tied to #wcry ransomware. https://t.co/wX2k9pJLNQ — actual ransom (@actual_ransom) August 3, 2017 Alberto Ornaghi, Neutrino’s chief technology officer, told CyberScoop that Monero is attractive because “it’s a highly oriented privacy cryptocurrency.” The idea of shifting the funds to to Monero, a three-year old project widely seen as a powerful anonymization tool, has been bandied about for months by a wide range of observers. It looks […]

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Jeff Sessions made investors want to throw money at dark net intelligence firms

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When U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions stepped in front of cameras and told the world about the international law enforcement operation that resulted in the bust of at least two multimillion-dollar dark net markets, investors’ ears perked up. OWL Cybersecurity is a two-year old Denver-based dark net intelligence firm currently closing a funding round. In the one week since Sessions and other federal law enforcement officials announced the AlphaBay dark net bust, OWL vice president Andrew Lewman says he has received a mountain of phone calls from potential investors. “Regardless of your politics, when Jeff Sessions stands up and says ‘the dark net is a concern, that gets a lot of attention,” Lewman said. “In the past two weeks, we’ve had all these people we’ve talked to in the past saying they didn’t understand it, didn’t know what it was come at us and say, ‘About that investment, are you still taking offers?’” […]

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A week in security (July 17 – July 23)

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A compilation of security news and blog posts from the 17th of July to the 23rd. We discuss the recent Dark Web market take downs and lots more.

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Hansa Market on Dark Web was controlled by Dutch police

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Dutch and US authorities revealed the results of an international cooperation to take down markets on the Dark Web trafficking in drugs, weapons, malware, and stolen data.
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After AlphaBay’s Demise, Customers Flocked to Dark Market Run by Dutch Police

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Earlier this month, news broke that authorities had seized the Dark Web marketplace AlphaBay, an online black market that peddled everything from heroin to stolen identity and credit card data. But it wasn’t until today, when the U.S. Justice Department held a press conference to detail the AlphaBay takedown that the other shoe dropped: Police in The Netherlands for the past month have been operating Hansa Market, a competing Dark Web bazaar that enjoyed a massive influx of new customers immediately after the AlphaBay takedown. Continue reading After AlphaBay’s Demise, Customers Flocked to Dark Market Run by Dutch Police→

Fall of AlphaBay raises ‘a different balance of power’ on the dark web

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For criminal entrepreneurs, the fall of the dark web’s most profitable black market raises questions about which service will be the next illegal-marketplace titan or the next one whose operator lands behind bars. After three years of hosting a multimillion-dollar illegal business, AlphaBay ceased to exist earlier this month in the face of an international law enforcement operation.  Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen who allegedly was one of the site’s operators, was found hanged in his Thailand prison cell Wednesday as extradition to the United States was being prepared. This comes just a few months after Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted and sentenced to life for running the dark web marketplace Silk Road, lost his appeal in a New York courtroom. AlphaBay sold a wide range of illicit goods including drugs, stolen data and hacking tools. At one point, AlphaBay operated as the criminal answer to Amazon.com’s hugely successful hold on the legal […]

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AlphaBay shut down by law enforcement raids across three countries

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AlphaBay, the largest and most profitable dark net black market to exist since the fall of Silk Road, was taken down by an international police action, according to the Wall Street Journal. The site shut down suddenly on July 5, prompting worries that millions of dollars could have been taken from its customers. In 2015, operators of one major dark net market took $12 million from users in just such a scheme. Instead, AlphaBay’s shutdown was due to raids and arrests by law enforcement in the United States, Canada and Thailand. Officials targeted Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen thought to be the leader of AlphaBay. Cazes was found dead in a Thailand jail cell on Wednesday, supposedly while extradition to the U.S. was being prepared. The Bangkok Post reported that police impounded “four Lamborghini cars and three houses worth about 400 million baht ($11.7 million) in total” from Cazes, who had been living in Thailand for eight years. AlphaBay […]

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News in brief: fears as online bazaar goes dark; Tesla to build biggest battery; EU move on right to repair

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Your daily round-up of some of the other stories in the news Continue reading News in brief: fears as online bazaar goes dark; Tesla to build biggest battery; EU move on right to repair→