Hacked government contractor shares breach details as investigation continues

The president of a hacked U.S. government contractor says a recent breach has cost his company $500,000 to $1 million in what he deemed a “learning experience” that should be shared with other organizations to raise their network defenses. “It could happen to anyone,” Sandesh Sharda, president of Arlington, Virginia-based Miracle Systems, told CyberScoop. “We keep hearing about all these hacks all the time, whether it’s Baltimore, whether it’s Texas, whether it’s Capital One, commercial or government. This is not going to go away…How we prepare our industry for these kinds of hacks is [what’s] most important.” It’s been a month since Miracle Systems, which provides IT, engineering and other services to more than 20 federal agencies, learned that its internal server had been breached. On at least one cybercriminal forum, a hacker or hackers has advertised access to internal company data, as journalist Brian Krebs reported. Sharda downplayed the breach, […]

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Brazilian ‘pirates’ sail around two-factor authentication to vex banking sector

For researchers investigating malicious network activity in a given country, scanning hacker forums is like reading tea leaves. The discussion boards can provide insight about which malware is most popular, its likely victims and some clues that can help identify the thieves cashing in. In Brazil, underground bazaars host a bevy of hackers that cybersecurity company Recorded Future has dubbed “pirates” for their willingness to change tactics at any time in order to find easy money. That traditionally could mean flooding a large number of users with text messages and counting on someone to click a link, or using spam to change the domain name settings on local routers. It’s clear now some so-called pirates are capable of more. Skilled Brazilian cybercriminals are able to circumvent two-factor authentication through SIM-swapping, by compromising desktops used for banking, or by directly interfering with the banking sessions, according to research published Tuesday by Recorded Future. The findings illuminate a Brazilian […]

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Dark-Web Drug Dealer Arrested After He Travelled US for World Beard Championships

United States authorities arrested suspected dark web drug kingpin late last month while he was travelling from his base in France to the United States of America for this year’s annual World Beard and Mustache Championships.

Gal Vallerius, a 38-year-old French national, was travelling to Austin, Texas, for the competition but was caught by U.S. authorities on August 31 upon landing at

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Dark Web Users Suspect “Dream Market” Has Also Been Backdoored by Feds

By now you might be aware of the took down of two of the largest online dark websites—AlphaBay and Hansa—in what’s being called the largest-ever international operation against the dark web’s black market conducted by the FBI, DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and Dutch National Police.

But the interesting aspect of the takedown was that the federal authorities shut down AlphaBay, but took

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