Everything must go: Cybercriminal forums offer discounts during pandemic

Countless legitimate businesses are offering discounts or altering their services to turn a profit during the coronavirus pandemic. Cybercriminal forums are no different. More than 500 posts on forums tracked by cybersecurity company Group-IB have advertised promotional codes and discounts during the pandemic on distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack tools, spamming, and other services. It’s an example of how the economy for cybercriminal services — worth, according to one estimate, $1.6 billion annually — is adapting to a health crisis that has changed spending habits around the world. “Due to the current situation in the world, we provide a 20% discount on all our services with a promotional code: COVID-2019 until the end of April,” read one criminal forum posting found by Group-IB, which was originally in Russian. Another post offered customer service around the clock. “The prices are very favorable during the coronavirus epidemic.” The Group-IB data fits a larger picture. Multiple threat intelligence […]

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Alleged Silk Road employee extradited from Ireland to U.S.

An alleged high-level employee of the dark web market Silk Road was extradited from Ireland to the United States on Friday, the Department of Justice announced. This follows a years-long legal fight against extradition that failed last month. Gary Davis, also known as Libertas, is accused of being a salaried administrator on Silk Road, one of the first multimillion dollar dark web markets that took advantage of cryptocurrency. The vast majority of the illicit goods available on Silk Road were illegal drugs but other digital services and goods, including some malware, was available for purchase on the underground market. Silk Road was shuttered in October 2013 after a high-profile FBI investigation ended with the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, who is now serving a double life sentence in American prison. It’s difficult to overstate the degree to which Silk Road, for a short but intense period of time, drew global attention […]

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