Category Archives: Department of Justice

Case involving ‘AlfabetoVirtual’ website defacements ends in guilty plea

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A California man accused by federal prosecutors of defacing thousands of websites belonging to the U.S. government pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two felony counts of computer fraud, the Department of Justice announced. The DOJ says that Billy Anderson, 41, admitted to more than 11,000 instances of hacking into and defacing websites belonging to the military and government, as well as businesses. Anderson allegedly conducted these operations under the alias “AlfabetoVirtual,” which would appear on the defaced websites. “This case demonstrates that those who seek to commit cyber intrusions of government websites will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said Geoffrey Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a statement. While the DOJ says he “took responsibility for” thousands of defacements, Anderson’s plea is for two counts in particular. In July 2015, prosecutors say he gained access to a website run by the […]

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FBI’s Crime Data Explorer: What the Numbers Say about Cybercrime

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What do the numbers say about Cybercrime?  Not much.  No one is using them.  

There is a popular quote often mis-attributed to the hero of Total Quality Management, Edward Deming:  “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage i… Continue reading FBI’s Crime Data Explorer: What the Numbers Say about Cybercrime→

Executive order creates system for ‘automatic’ sanctions on foreigners interfering with U.S. elections

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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order authorizing sanctions against foreign individual, entity or country attempting to interfere in U.S. elections, the White House announced Wednesday. The order is not public yet, so the exact details remain unknown. The text was outlined by the White House in a phone call with reporters on Wednesday morning. Some sanctions would be “automatic” in cases where federal investigators identify meddling, White House officials said. “It’s a further effort among several that the administration has made,” national security adviser John Bolton said. “It includes not just interference against election or campaign infrastructure, but it also covers the distribution of propaganda and disinformation.” The executive order requires the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to make regular assessments about potential foreign interference in the election. It also asks for reports by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security in cases interference with election […]

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Analysts expect Lazarus Group to evolve, clean up opsec

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In crossing the threshold of unmasking an alleged Lazarus Group member last week, the Department of Justice showed the efficacy of combining private digital forensics with the long arm of the law. Yet if history is any guide, experts say outing the alleged hacker will do little to curb North Korea’s behavior. Instead, research believe the group will likely clean up its operational security and continue to evolve. In the years that Eric Chien, technical director of Symantec’s Security Response, has been tracking the Pyongyang-linked hacking group, “all we’ve seen is an escalation,” he said. “They’ve only gotten more bold and more experienced in their attacks.” The charges announced Thursday by the Justice Department against North Korean computer programmer Park Jin Hyok showed slip-ups in Park’s operational security, known colloquially as OPSEC. For example, investigators were able to tie email accounts apparently used by Park’s front company in China to spearphishing and reconnaissance conducted ahead of some of Lazarus’s alleged hacking […]

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Feds Charge a Russian With Hack of 80 Million JP Morgan Customers

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The Department of Justice announced the indictment of a Russian citizen. He is the fifth man to be charged for targeting several US financial institutions between 2012 and 2015. Continue reading Feds Charge a Russian With Hack of 80 Million JP Morgan Customers→

U.S. charges North Korean hacker over Sony, WannaCry incidents

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The Department of Justice announced charges Thursday against a North Korean spy in connection with the 2014 attack on Sony Pictures and the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack. Park Jin Hyok, a North Korean computer programmer, has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit computer-related fraud. The government alleges that Park was operating under the front company “Chosun Expo” or the “Korean Expo Joint Venture,” in addition to activities conducted on behalf of North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau. The complaint says along side the attacks on Sony, Park was part of a group that also attacked AMC Theaters, U.K.-based independent production company Mammoth Screen around the same time as the Sony Pictures hack. Additionally, the government alleges that Park was instrumental in attacks on defense contractor Lockheed Martin and the Bank of Bangladesh. The latter incident saw $81 million stolen through the […]

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DOJ arrests three Ukrainians allegedly tied to FIN7 hacking gang

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Three Ukrainians accused of hacking vast quantities of financial data from U.S. businesses have been indicted, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday. The individuals arrested are Dmytro Fedorov, 44, Fedir Hladyr, 33, and Andrii Kopakov, 30. The trio are allegedly part of a hacking group called “FIN7” by the government, but more widely known as Carbanak, a group that allegedly stole billions from worldwide banks and tens of millions of dollars from U.S. companies since the group’s inception in 2014. Carbanak boasts dozens of members and a complex organization which, prosecutors say, the three arrested men helped manage and control. “The three Ukrainian nationals indicted today allegedly were part of a prolific hacking group that targeted American companies and citizens by stealing valuable consumer data, including personal credit card information, that they then sold on the Darknet,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski. The three men are charged with 26 felony counts alleging […]

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DOJ drops massive report on its efforts to protect U.S. from cyberattacks

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The Justice Department has laid out its strategy to fight malicious foreign influence and cyberattacks against U.S. elections. The Department of Justice’s internal “Cyber-Digital Task Force” released a 156-page report Thursday night detailing its work regarding election interference, attacks against critical infrastructure, industry and government as well as the spread of propaganda on the internet. Just prior to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announcing the new report, it was reported that the three top cyber officials at the FBI are leaving their posts, according to the Wall Street Journal. It’s a significant blow at a time when the FBI is playing a central role in the Justice Department’s cyber strategy. “The Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election is just one tree in a growing forest,” Rosenstein said in prepared remarks. “Russian intelligence officers did not stumble onto the ideas of hacking American computers and posting misleading messages because they had a free […]

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Twitter shutters accounts linked to US election hacking

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The move comes after special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russians believed to have used the accounts as fronts in US election hacking. Continue reading Twitter shutters accounts linked to US election hacking→

DOJ regrets the error on OPM-linked fraud case

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The Department of Justice has apologized for confusion over its announcement last month that a fraudster used information stolen in the infamous 2015 Office of Personnel Management breach — an episode that confounded lawmakers and ran counter to publicly available information on the breach. The confusion began after DOJ announced on June 18 that a Maryland woman had pleaded guilty to using stolen OPM data to get car and personal loans. The public assumption had been – and still is – that Chinese hackers had stolen the data for espionage purposes. But DOJ now says that it hasn’t yet determined whether the woman and her accomplice got the data from the OPM breach or somewhere else. After an internal review, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia appended a statement to its press release saying that “numerous victims” of the fraud self-identified as victims of the OPM breach. “The government […]

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