A Slovenian man convicted of authoring the destructive and once-prolific Mariposa botnet and running the infamous Darkode cybercrime forum has been arrested in Germany on request from prosecutors in the United States, who’ve recently re-indicted him on related charges.
On Dec. 6, 2017, approximately USD $52 million worth of Bitcoin mysteriously disappeared from the coffers of NiceHash, a Slovenian company that lets users sell their computing power to help others mine virtual currencies. As the investigation into the heist nears the end of its second week, many Nice-Hash users have expressed surprise to learn that the company’s chief technology officer recently served several years in prison for operating and reselling a massive botnet, and for creating and running ‘Darkode,” until recently the world’s most bustling English-language cybercrime forum.
When you’re lurking in the computer crime underground, it pays to watch your back and to keep your BS meter set to ‘maximum.’ But when you’ve gained access to an elite black market section of a closely guarded crime forum to which very few have access, it’s easy to let your guard down. That’s what I did earlier this year, and it caused me to chase a false story. This blog post aims to set the record straight on that front, and to offer a cautionary (and possibly entertaining) tale to other would-be cybersleuths.
Members of an exclusive underground hacker forum recently sought to plant malware on KrebsOnSecurity.com, by paying to run tainted advertisements through the site’s advertising network — Federated Media. The attack was unsuccessful thanks to a variety of safeguards, but it highlights the challenges that many organizations face in combating the growing scourge of “malvertising.”
