Category: crowdstrike

A cyberattack that shut down two of the top casinos in Las Vegas last year quickly became one of the most riveting security stories of 2023: It was the first known case of native English-speaking hackers in the United States and Britain teaming up with ransomware gangs based in Russia. But that made-for-Hollywood narrative has eclipsed a far more hideous trend: Many of these young, Western cybercriminals are also members of fast-growing online groups that exist solely to bully, stalk, harass and extort vulnerable teens into physically harming themselves and others.

Image: Shutterstock.

In September 2023, a Russian ransomware group known as ALPHV/Black Cat claimed credit for an intrusion at the MGM Resorts hotel chain that quickly brought MGM’s casinos in Las Vegas to a standstill. While MGM was still trying to evict the intruders from its systems, an individual who claimed to have firsthand knowledge of the hack contacted multiple media outlets to offer interviews about how it all went down.

One account of the hack came from a 17-year-old in the United Kingdom, who told reporters the intrusion began when one of the English-speaking hackers phoned a tech support person at MGM and tricked them into resetting the password for an employee account.

The security firm CrowdStrike dubbed the group “Scattered Spider,” a recognition that the MGM hackers came from different hacker cliques scattered across an ocean of Telegram and Discord servers dedicated to financially-oriented cybercrime.

Collectively, this archipelago of crime-focused chat communities is known as “The Com,” and it functions as a kind of distributed cybercriminal social network that facilitates instant collaboration.

But mostly, The Com is a place where cybercriminals go to boast about their exploits and standing within the community, or to knock others down a peg or two. Top Com members are constantly sniping over who pulled off the most impressive heists, or who has accumulated the biggest pile of stolen virtual currencies.

And as often as they extort victim companies for financial gain, members of The Com are constantly trying to wrest stolen money from their cybercriminal rivals — often in ways that spill over into physical violence in the real world.

CrowdStrike would go on to produce and sell Scattered Spider action figures, and it featured a life-sized Scattered Spider sculpture at this year’s RSA Security Conference in San Francisco.

But marketing security products and services based on specific cybercriminal groups can be tricky, particularly if it turns out that robbing and extorting victims is by no means the most abhorrent activity those groups engage in on a daily basis.

KrebsOnSecurity examined the Telegram user ID number of the account that offered media interviews about the MGM hack — which corresponds to the screen name “@Holy” — and found the same account was used across a number of cybercrime channels that are entirely focused on extorting young people into harming themselves or others, and recording the harm on video.

In one post on a Telegram channel dedicated to youth extortion, this same user can be seen asking if anyone knows the current Telegram handles for several core members of 764, an extremist group known for victimizing children through coordinated online campaigns of extortion, doxing, swatting and harassment.

HOLY NAZI

Holy was known to possess multiple prized Telegram usernames, including @bomb, @halo, and @cute, as well as one of the highest-priced Telegram usernames ever put up for sale: @nazi. A source close to the investigation said @Holy also was a moderator on “Harm Nation,” an offshoot of 764.

People affiliated with harm groups like 764 will often recruit new members by lurking on gaming platforms, social media sites and mobile applications that are popular with young people, including Discord, Minecraft, Roblox, Steam, Telegram, and Twitch.

“This type of offence usually starts with a direct message through gaming platforms and can move to more private chatrooms on other virtual platforms, typically one with video enabled features, where the conversation quickly becomes sexualized or violent,” warns a recent alert from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) about the rise of sextortion groups on social media channels.

“One of the tactics being used by these actors is sextortion, however, they are not using it to extract money or for sexual gratification,” the RCMP continued. “Instead they use it to further manipulate and control victims to produce more harmful and violent content as part of their ideological objectives and radicalization pathway.”

The 764 network is among the most populated harm communities, but there are plenty more. Some of the largest such known groups include CVLT, Court, Kaskar, Leak Society, 7997, 8884, 2992, 6996, 555, Slit Town, 545, 404, NMK, 303, and H3ll.

In March, a consortium of reporters from Wired, Der Spiegel, Recorder and The Washington Post examined millions of messages across more than 50 Discord and Telegram chat groups.

“The abuse perpetrated by members of com groups is extreme,” Wired’s Ali Winston wrote. “They have coerced children into sexual abuse or self-harm, causing them to deeply lacerate their bodies to carve ‘cutsigns’ of an abuser’s online alias into their skin.” The story continues:

“Victims have flushed their heads in toilets, attacked their siblings, killed their pets, and in some extreme instances, attempted or died by suicide. Court records from the United States and European nations reveal participants in this network have also been accused of robberies, in-person sexual abuse of minors, kidnapping, weapons violations, swatting, and murder.”

“Some members of the network extort children for sexual pleasure, some for power and control. Some do it merely for the kick that comes from manipulation. Others sell the explicit CSAM content produced by extortion on the dark web.”

KrebsOnSecurity has learned Holy’s real name is Owen David Flowers, and that he is the previously unnamed 17-year-old who was arrested in July 2024 by the U.K.’s West Midlands Police as part of a joint investigation with the FBI into the MGM hack.

Early in their cybercriminal career (as a 15-year-old), @Holy went by the handle “Vsphere,” and was a proud member of the LAPSUS$ cybercrime group. Throughout 2022, LAPSUS$ would hack and social engineer their way into some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including EA Games, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Okta, Samsung, and T-Mobile.

JUDISCHE/WAIFU

Another timely example of the overlap between harm communities and top members of The Com can be found in a group of criminals who recently stole obscene amounts of customer records from users of the cloud data provider Snowflake.

At the end of 2023, malicious hackers figured out that many major companies have uploaded massive amounts of valuable and sensitive customer data to Snowflake servers, all the while protecting those Snowflake accounts with little more than a username and password (no multi-factor authentication required). The group then searched darknet markets for stolen Snowflake account credentials, and began raiding the data storage repositories used by some of the world’s largest corporations.

Among those that had data exposed in Snowflake was AT&T, which disclosed in July that cybercriminals had stolen personal information and phone and text message records for roughly 110 million people — nearly all its customers.

A report on the extortion group from the incident response firm Mandiant notes that Snowflake victim companies were privately approached by the hackers, who demanded a ransom in exchange for a promise not to sell or leak the stolen data. All told, more than 160 organizations were extorted, including TicketMaster, Lending Tree, Advance Auto Parts and Neiman Marcus.

On May 2, 2024, a user by the name “Judische” claimed on the fraud-focused Telegram channel Star Chat that they had hacked Santander Bank, one of the first known Snowflake victims. Judische would repeat that claim in Star Chat on May 13 — the day before Santander publicly disclosed a data breach — and would periodically blurt out the names of other Snowflake victims before their data even went up for sale on the cybercrime forums.

A careful review of Judische’s account history and postings on Telegram shows this user is more widely known under the nickname “Waifu,” an early moniker that corresponds to one of the more accomplished SIM-swappers in The Com over the years.

In a SIM-swapping attack, the fraudsters will phish or purchase credentials for mobile phone company employees, and use those credentials to redirect a target’s mobile calls and text messages to a device the attackers control.

Several channels on Telegram maintain a frequently updated leaderboard of the 100 richest SIM-swappers, as well as the hacker handles associated with specific cybercrime groups (Waifu is ranked #24). That leaderboard has long included Waifu on a roster of hackers for a group that called itself “Beige.”

Beige members were implicated in two stories published here in 2020. The first was an August 2020 piece called Voice Phishers Targeting Corporate VPNs, which warned that the COVID-19 epidemic had brought a wave of voice phishing or “vishing” attacks that targeted work-from-home employees via their mobile devices, and tricked many of those people into giving up credentials needed to access their employer’s network remotely.

Beige group members also have claimed credit for a breach at the domain registrar GoDaddy. In November 2020, intruders thought to be associated with the Beige Group tricked a GoDaddy employee into installing malicious software, and with that access they were able to redirect the web and email traffic for multiple cryptocurrency trading platforms.

The Telegram channels that Judische and his related accounts frequented over the years show this user divides their time between posting in SIM-swapping and cybercrime cashout channels, and harassing and stalking others in harm communities like Leak Society and Court.

Mandiant has attributed the Snowflake compromises to a group it calls “UNC5537,” with members based in North America and Turkey. KrebsOnSecurity has learned Judische is a 26-year-old software engineer in Ontario, Canada.

Sources close to the investigation into the Snowflake incident tell KrebsOnSecurity the UNC5537 member in Turkey is John Erin Binns, an elusive American man indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for a 2021 breach at T-Mobile that exposed the personal information of at least 76.6 million customers.

Binns is currently in custody in a Turkish prison and fighting his extradition. Meanwhile, he has been suing almost every federal agency and agent that contributed investigative resources to his case.

In June 2024, a Mandiant employee told Bloomberg that UNC5537 members have made death threats against cybersecurity experts investigating the hackers, and that in one case the group used artificial intelligence to create fake nude photos of a researcher to harass them.

ViLE

In June 2024, two American men pleaded guilty to hacking into a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) online portal that tapped into 16 different federal law enforcement databases.  Sagar “Weep” Singh, a 20-year-old from Rhode Island, and Nicholas “Convict” Ceraolo, 25, of Queens, NY, were both active in SIM-swapping communities.

Singh and Ceraolo hacked into a number of foreign police department email accounts, and used them to make phony “emergency data requests” to social media platforms seeking account information about specific users they were stalking. According to the government, in each case the men impersonating the foreign police departments told those platforms the request was urgent because the account holders had been trading in child pornography or engaging in child extortion.

Eventually, the two men formed part of a group of cybercriminals known to its members as “ViLE,” who specialize in obtaining personal information about third-party victims, which they then used to harass, threaten or extort the victims, a practice known as “doxing.”

The U.S. government says Singh and Ceraolo worked closely with a third man — referenced in the indictment as co-conspirator #1 or “CC-1” — to administer a doxing forum where victims could pay to have their personal information removed.

The government doesn’t name CC-1 or the doxing forum, but CC-1’s hacker handle is “Kayte” (a.k.a. “KT“) which corresponds to the nickname of a 23-year-old man who lives with his parents in Coffs Harbor, Australia. For several years (with a brief interruption), KT has been the administrator of a truly vile doxing community known as the Doxbin.

A screenshot of the website for the cybercriminal group “ViLE.” Image: USDOJ.

People whose names and personal information appear on the Doxbin can quickly find themselves the target of extended harassment campaigns, account hacking, SIM-swapping and even swatting — which involves falsely reporting a violent incident at a target’s address to trick local police into responding with potentially deadly force.

A handful of Com members targeted by federal authorities have gone so far as to perpetrate swatting, doxing, and other harassment against the same federal agents who are trying to unravel their alleged crimes. This has led some investigators working cases involving the Com to begin redacting their names from affidavits and indictments filed in federal court.

In January 2024, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that prosecutors in Florida had charged a 19-year-old alleged Scattered Spider member named Noah Michael Urban with wire fraud and identity theft. That story recounted how Urban’s alleged hacker identities “King Bob” and “Sosa” inhabited a world in which rival cryptocurrency theft rings frequently settled disputes through so-called “violence-as-a-service” offerings — hiring strangers online to perpetrate firebombings, beatings and kidnappings against their rivals.

Urban’s indictment is currently sealed. But a copy of the document obtained by KrebsOnSecurity shows the name of the federal agent who testified to it has been blacked out.

The final page of Noah Michael Urban’s indictment shows the investigating agent redacted their name from charging documents.

HACKING RINGS, STALKING VICTIMS

In June 2022, this blog told the story of two men charged with hacking into the Ring home security cameras of a dozen random people and then methodically swatting each of them. Adding insult to injury, the men used the compromised security cameras to record live footage of local police swarming those homes.

McCarty, in a mugshot.

James Thomas Andrew McCarty, Charlotte, N.C., and Kya Christian Nelson, of Racine, Wisc., conspired to hack into Yahoo email accounts belonging to victims in the United States. The two would check how many of those Yahoo accounts were associated with Ring accounts, and then target people who used the same password for both accounts.

The Telegram and Discord aliases allegedly used by McCarty — “Aspertaine” and “Couch,” among others — correspond to an identity that was active in certain channels dedicated to SIM-swapping.

What KrebsOnSecurity didn’t report at the time is that both ChumLul and Aspertaine were active members of CVLT, wherein those identities clearly participated in harassing and exploiting young teens online.

In June 2024, McCarty was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to making hoax calls that elicited police SWAT responses. Nelson also pleaded guilty and received a seven-year prison sentence.

POMPOMPURIN

In March 2023, U.S. federal agents in New York announced they’d arrested “Pompompurin,” the alleged administrator of Breachforums, an English-language cybercrime forum where hacked corporate databases frequently appear for sale. In cases where the victim organization isn’t extorted in advance by hackers, being listed on Breachforums has often been the way many victims first learned of an intrusion.

Pompompurin had been a nemesis to the FBI for several years. In November 2021, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that thousands of fake emails about a cybercrime investigation were blasted out from the FBI’s email systems and Internet addresses.

Pompompurin took credit for that stunt, and said he was able to send the FBI email blast by exploiting a flaw in an FBI portal designed to share information with state and local law enforcement authorities. The FBI later acknowledged that a software misconfiguration allowed someone to send the fake emails.

In December, 2022, KrebsOnSecurity detailed how hackers active on BreachForums had infiltrated the FBI’s InfraGard program, a vetted network designed to build cyber and physical threat information sharing partnerships with experts in the private sector. The hackers impersonated the CEO of a major financial company, applied for InfraGard membership in the CEO’s name, and were granted admission to the community.

The feds named Pompompurin as 21-year-old Peeksill resident Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, who was originally charged with one count of conspiracy to solicit individuals to sell unauthorized access devices (stolen usernames and passwords). But after FBI agents raided and searched the home where Fitzpatrick lived with his parents, prosecutors tacked on charges for possession of child pornography.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM?

Recent actions by the DOJ indicate the government is well aware of the significant overlap between leading members of The Com and harm communities. But the government also is growing more sensitive to the criticism that it can often take months or years to gather enough evidence to criminally charge some of these suspects, during which time the perpetrators can abuse and recruit countless new victims.

Late last year, however, the DOJ signaled a new tactic in pursuing leaders of harm communities like 764: Charging them with domestic terrorism.

In December 2023, the government charged (PDF) a Hawaiian man with possessing and sharing sexually explicit videos and images of prepubescent children being abused. Prosecutors allege Kalana Limkin, 18, of Hilo, Hawaii, admitted he was an associate of CVLT and 764, and that he was the founder of a splinter harm group called Cultist. Limkin’s Telegram profile shows he also was active on the harm community Slit Town.

The relevant citation from Limkin’s complaint reads:

“Members of the group ‘764’ have conspired and continue to conspire in both online and in-person venues to engage in violent actions in furtherance of a Racially Motivated Violent Extremist ideology, wholly or in part through activities that violate federal criminal law meeting the statutory definition of Domestic Terrorism, defined in Title 18, United States Code, § 2331.”

Experts say charging harm groups under anti-terrorism statutes potentially gives the government access to more expedient investigative powers than it would normally have in a run-of-the-mill criminal hacking case.

“What it ultimately gets you is additional tools you can use in the investigation, possibly warrants and things like that,” said Mark Rasch, a former U.S. federal cybercrime prosecutor and now general counsel for the New York-based cybersecurity firm Unit 221B. “It can also get you additional remedies at the end of the case, like greater sanctions, more jail time, fines and forfeiture.”

But Rasch said this tactic can backfire on prosecutors who overplay their hand and go after someone who ends up challenging the charges in court.

“If you’re going to charge a hacker or pedophile with a crime like terrorism, that’s going to make it harder to get a conviction,” Rasch said. “It adds to the prosecutorial burden and increases the likelihood of getting an acquittal.”

Rasch said it’s unclear where it is appropriate to draw the line in the use of terrorism statutes to disrupt harm groups online, noting that there certainly are circumstances where individuals can commit violations of domestic anti-terrorism statutes through their Internet activity alone.

“The Internet is a platform like any other, where virtually any kind of crime that can be committed in the real world can also be committed online,” he said. “That doesn’t mean all misuse of computers fits within the statutory definition of terrorism.”

The RCMP’s warning on sexual extortion of minors over the Internet lists a number of potential warning signs that teens may exhibit if they become immeshed in these harm groups. The FBI urges anyone who believes their child or someone they know is being exploited to contact their local FBI field office, call 1-800-CALL-FBI, or report it online at tips.fbi.gov.

A couple weeks ago, an IT outage hit Microsoft Windows 10 and 11 servers shortly after CrowdStrike released a Falcon Sensors software update. Rather than resolving, the update transformed into a software bug , affecting over 8.2 million PCs and servers globally.

The disruption, initially caused by the software update, has since been exploited by hackers, who are using the vulnerability to launch phishing attacks.

The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) of India has issued a worldwide alert, warning that CrowdStrike Threat Monitoring software users are being targeted in a phishing scam. Thousands in India and potentially millions worldwide are at risk.

CERT-India’s advisory, released last Saturday, cautions Windows 10 and 11 users to be vigilant against phishing attempts. Hackers are posing as CrowdStrike support staff through phone calls, emails, or SMS messages. Their goal is to infiltrate networks, gather intelligence, or deploy malware, exacerbating the IT crisis that began with the Microsoft outage on July 19, 2024.

CrowdStrike is grappling with a loss of trust, customer migration, and other business challenges following the incident. If customers fall victim to these phishing attacks, it could further damage the company’s reputation and financial stability, potentially leading to significant losses and a severe impact on this year’s profits.

To protect against these threats, it’s crucial to verify the identity of anyone claiming to be IT support before taking any action. Additionally, raising awareness among employees about these phishing schemes is essential to mitigate potential damage.

It’s worth noting that CERT-India’s warning coincides with media speculation about the hacking group USDoD allegedly leaking data from CrowdStrike’s servers earlier this year.

In response, John Cable, Microsoft’s VP of Program Management, has stressed the importance of end-to-end resilience. Microsoft plans to restrict kernel access for security software by focusing on alternatives like Azure Attestation Service and VBS Enclave—measures similar to those Apple implemented for macOS in 2020. Additionally, Microsoft has hired over 5,000 support engineers to help affected organizations recover from the outage, aiming to enhance its service levels by 100% by the first week of August 2024.

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The threat actor known as USDoD, infamous for leaking sensitive information from major databases including those of Airbus, TransUnion, and the US Environmental Agency, has resurfaced in the news. On July 25, 2024, USDoD released a portion of a dataset related to threat intelligence compiled by CrowdStrike, the Florida-based cybersecurity firm.

The leaked information was posted on a data breach forum and included a link shared with CrowdStrike’s partners and some of its clients. Following the breach, CrowdStrike confirmed the authenticity of the leaked data and stated that they would provide further details after a thorough investigation.

The released data encompasses various aspects of threat actors, such as their status, country of origin, last active dates, targeted industries, the nationalities of their victims, and any state-sponsored intelligence linked to them.

The timing of this leak is notable, coming exactly one week after CrowdStrike faced a significant IT crisis involving Windows Operating Systems worldwide, caused by a bug in their Falcon Sensors. Analysts suggest that USDoD might have released this information either to gain notoriety or to damage CrowdStrike’s reputation, which has already been impacted by the global IT outage experienced by Microsoft on July 18-19, 2024.

Typically, such Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) are used to estimate or predict the attack strategies of threat actors. USDoD has indicated that more information will be released by the end of the month but has not made any demands, suggesting that this initial leak may simply be a precursor to further revelations.

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Computers blue-screen-of-death around the world! The Paris Olympics is at risk of attack! And the FBI pull off the biggest sting operation in history by running a secret end-to-end encrypted messaging app! All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by industry veterans Graham Cluley and … Continue reading "Smashing Security podcast #382: CrowdStrike, Dark Wire, and the Paris Olympics"

A faulty software update from cybersecurity vendor Crowdstrike crippled countless Microsoft Windows computers across the globe today, disrupting everything from airline travel and financial institutions to hospitals and businesses online. Crowdstrike said a fix has been deployed, but experts say the recovery from this outage could take some time, as Crowdstrike’s solution needs to be applied manually on a per-machine basis.

A photo taken at San Jose International Airport today shows the dreaded Microsoft “Blue Screen of Death” across the board. Credit: Twitter.com/adamdubya1990

Earlier today, an errant update shipped by Crowdstrike began causing Windows machines running the software to display the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death,” rendering those systems temporarily unusable. Like most security software, Crowdstrike requires deep hooks into the Windows operating system to fend off digital intruders, and in that environment a tiny coding error can quickly lead to catastrophic outcomes.

In a post on Twitter/X, Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said an update to correct the coding mistake has been shipped, and that Mac and Linux systems are not affected.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” Kurtz said on Twitter, echoing a written statement by Crowdstrike. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

Posting to Twitter/X, the director of Crowdstrike’s threat hunting operations said the fix involves booting Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE), deleting the file “C-00000291*.sys” and then restarting the machine.

The software snafu may have been compounded by a recent series of outages involving Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, The New York Times reports, although it remains unclear whether those Azure problems are at all related to the bad Crowdstrike update.

A reader shared this photo taken earlier today at Denver International Airport. Credit: Twitter.com/jterryy07

Reactions to today’s outage were swift and brutal on social media, which was flooded with images of people at airports surrounded by computer screens displaying the Microsoft blue screen error. Many Twitter/X users chided the Crowdstrike CEO for failing to apologize for the massively disruptive event, while others noted that doing so could expose the company to lawsuits.

Meanwhile, the international Windows outage quickly became the most talked-about subject on Twitter/X, whose artificial intelligence bots collated a series of parody posts from cybersecurity professionals pretending to be on their first week of work at Crowdstrike. Incredibly,Twitter/X’s AI summarized these sarcastic posts into a sunny, can-do story about Crowdstrike that was promoted as the top discussion on Twitter this morning.

“Several individuals have recently started working at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and have expressed their excitement and pride in their new roles,” the AI summary read. “They have shared their experiences of pushing code to production on their first day and are looking forward to positive outcomes in their work.”

The top story today on Twitter/X, as brilliantly summarized by X’s AI bots.

Matt Burgess at Wired writes that within health care and emergency services, various medical providers around the world have reported issues with their Windows-linked systems, sharing news on social media or their own websites.

“The US Emergency Alert System, which issues hurricane warnings, said that there had been various 911 outages in a number of states,” Burgess wrote. “Germany’s University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein said it was canceling some nonurgent surgeries at two locations. In Israel, more than a dozen hospitals have been impacted, as well as pharmacies, with reports saying ambulances have been rerouted to nonimpacted medical organizations.”

In the United Kingdom, NHS England has confirmed that appointment and patient record systems have been impacted by the outages.

“One hospital has declared a ‘critical’ incident after a third-party IT system it used was impacted,” Wired reports. “Also in the country, train operators have said there are delays across the network, with multiple companies being impacted.”

This is an evolving story. Stay tuned for updates.

CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity technology company, has officially announced its acquisition of the Israel-based startup ‘Flow Security’ for $200 million. Flow Security is known as the world’s sole provider of cloud data runtime security solutions, uniquely safeguarding data both at rest and in motion.

The acquisition of Flow Security’s data security posture management technology by CrowdStrike will primarily involve a cash transaction and is set to be finalized by May of this year, subject to customary conditions and applicable laws.

This move will significantly enhance CrowdStrike’s position in the cloud industry, enabling its Falcon platform customers to gain visibility into data flows within the cloud and interactions with onboard applications.

Following the announcement of the new startup acquisition, CrowdStrike’s stock surged from $315 to $405 after the company reported strong fourth-quarter earnings.

Moreover, CrowdStrike has achieved a 100% ransomware protection certification for its Falcon platform in the SE Labs Enterprise Advanced Security Ransomware test. This rigorous test includes the use of approximately 270 recognized malware samples and an additional 106 different ransomware samples in controlled environments.

Among the ransomware samples tested in SE Labs’ environments are BlackCat (also known as ALPHV), Black Basta, Bad Rabbit, Babuk, Avaddon, Diavol, HelloKitty, LockBit, Hermes, and Robbihood.

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George Kurtz, the CEO of Crowd-Strike, has proposed a strategy for leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to combat ransomware attacks. During an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Kurtz emphasized that AI could play a crucial role in identifying novel ransomware variants developed for the first time.

Despite the potential benefits of using AI for cybersecurity, Kurtz acknowledged that hackers are also harnessing this technology to create sophisticated tools, such as the recent emergence of FraudGPT. This malicious online tool has gained prominence in the realm of DarkAI, showcasing the dual-edge nature of technological advancements.

Kurtz stressed the importance of preventive measures, asserting that early identification of threats could safeguard the global community from online vulnerabilities. He reiterated the adage that prevention is better than cure, emphasizing the proactive role AI can play in fortifying digital defenses.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, previously issued warnings about the potential risks of AI in both February and September of this year. Musk expressed concerns about AI posing a threat to humanity, particularly with the rise of deepfakes on social media, contributing to the spread of hatred and misinformation.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella echoed similar sentiments, acknowledging the potential threats posed by AI but emphasizing that the real danger arises when this technology falls into the wrong hands.

Meanwhile, cyber-criminal groups specializing in ransomware are utilizing AI tools to develop malware with not only data-encrypting capabilities but also the potential to wipe entire servers if deemed necessary for their criminal activities.

The question arises: should the development of Artificial Intelligence be halted or paused? It’s a complex dilemma, as innovation is essential for propelling humanity into the future. Fears about the future should not hinder present progress, though cautious considerations are necessary to strive for a more secure future, albeit to a certain extent.

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Bionic, a pioneering provider of Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) solutions, is celebrating a significant development as it becomes an integral part of CrowdStrike’s talented team. The acquisition of Bionic by CrowdStrike, a leading cybersecurity solutions company, has been completed for an undisclosed amount, believed to consist mostly of cash with a portion in stock, totaling an estimated $340 million.

This strategic move will see CrowdStrike incorporate Bionic’s ASPM technology into its in-house Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), bolstering its capabilities in risk visibility and cloud estate protection.

The announcement of this acquisition took place during CrowdStrike’s Falcon Conference 2023, which coincided with the release of its latest financial results. According to CrowdStrike’s 2023 Global Threat Report, incidents of cloud exploitations have surged threefold in the past year, and this trend is expected to continue its exponential growth in the coming years. As threat actors leverage AI-based tools to become more sophisticated, the threat landscape could become even more alarming by 2025.

Despite these escalating threats, the adoption of cloud computing remains steadfast in both corporate and public IT environments. The advantages of cloud computing far outweigh the drawbacks.

With Bionic’s technology, which includes both agent and agentless protection solutions for cloud infrastructure, CrowdStrike’s customers will gain real-time, frictionless application visibility. They will be able to swiftly prioritize vulnerabilities at the application level and enjoy comprehensive visibility into serverless infrastructure. This strategic integration positions CrowdStrike to effectively address the evolving cybersecurity challenges posed by the rapid growth of cloud-based technologies.

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Authorities in the United States and United Kingdom today levied financial sanctions against seven men accused of operating “Trickbot,” a cybercrime-as-a-service platform based in Russia that has enabled countless ransomware attacks and bank account takeovers since its debut in 2016. The U.S. Department of the Treasury says the Trickbot group is associated with Russian intelligence services, and that this alliance led to the targeting of many U.S. companies and government entities.

Initially a stealthy trojan horse program delivered via email and used to steal passwords, Trickbot evolved into “a highly modular malware suite that provides the Trickbot Group with the ability to conduct a variety of illegal cyber activities, including ransomware attacks,” the Treasury Department said.

A spam email from 2020 containing a Trickbot-infected attachment. Image: Microsoft.

“During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Trickbot targeted hospitals and healthcare centers, launching a wave of ransomware attacks against hospitals across the United States,” the sanctions notice continued. “In one of these attacks, the Trickbot Group deployed ransomware against three Minnesota medical facilities, disrupting their computer networks and telephones, and causing a diversion of ambulances. Members of the Trickbot Group publicly gloated over the ease of targeting the medical facilities and the speed with which the ransoms were paid to the group.”

Only one of the men sanctioned today is known to have been criminally charged in connection with hacking activity. According to the Treasury Department, the alleged senior leader of the Trickbot group is 34-year-old Russian national Vitaly “Bentley” Kovalev.

A New Jersey grand jury indicted Kovalev in 2012 after an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service determined that he ran a massive “money mule” scheme, which used phony job offers to trick people into laundering money stolen from hacked small to mid-sized businesses in the United States. The 2012 indictment against Kovalev relates to cybercrimes he allegedly perpetrated prior to the creation of Trickbot.

BOTNET, THE MOVIE

In 2015, Kovalev reportedly began filming a movie in Russia about cybercrime called “Botnet.” According to a 2016 story from Forbes.ru, Botnet’s opening scene was to depict the plight of Christina Svechinskaya, a Russian student arrested by FBI agents in September 2010.

Christina Svechinskaya, a money mule hired by Bentley who was arrested by the FBI in 2010.

Svechinskaya was one of Bentley’s money mules, most of whom were young Russian students on summer travel visas in the United States. She was among 37 alleged mules charged with aiding an international cybercrime operation — basically, setting up phony corporate bank accounts for the sole purpose of laundering stolen funds.

Although she possessed no real hacking skills, Svechinskaya’s mugshot and social media photos went viral online and she was quickly dubbed “the world’s sexiest computer hacker” by the tabloids.

Kovalev’s Botnet film project was disrupted after Russian authorities raided the film production company’s offices as part of a cybercrime investigation. In February 2016, Reuters reported that the raid was connected to a crackdown on “Dyre,” a sophisticated trojan that U.S. federal investigators say was the precursor to the Trickbot malware. The Forbes.ru article cited sources close to the investigation who said the film studio was operating as a money-laundering front for the cybercrooks behind Dyre.

TREASON

But shifting political winds in Russia would soon bring high treason charges against three of the Russian cybercrime investigators tied to the investigation into the film studio. In a major shakeup in 2017, the Kremlin levied treason charges against Sergey Mikhaylov, then deputy chief of Russia’s top anti-cybercrime unit.

Also charged with treason was Ruslan Stoyanov, then a senior employee at Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab [the Forbes.ru report from 2016 said investigators from Mikhaylov’s unit and Kaspersky Lab were present at the film company raid].

Russian media outlets have speculated that the men were accused of treason for helping American cybercrime investigators pursue top Russian hackers. However, the charges against both men were classified and have never been officially revealed. After their brief, closed trial, both men were convicted of treason. Mikhaylov was given a 22 year prison sentence; Stoyanov was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

In September 2021, the Kremlin issued treason charges against Ilya Sachkov, formerly head of the cybersecurity firm Group-IB. According to Reuters, Sachkov and his company were hired by the film studio “to advise the Botnet director and writers on the finer points of cybercrime.” Sachkov remains imprisoned in Russia pending his treason trial.

A WELL-OILED CYBERCRIME MACHINE

Trickbot was heavily used by Conti and Ryuk, two of Russia’s most ruthless and successful ransomware groups. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis estimates that in 2021 alone, Conti extorted more than USD $100 million from its hacking victims; Chainalysis estimates Ryuk extorted more than USD $150 million from its ransomware victims.

The U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has long tracked the activities of Trickbot, Ryuk and Conti under the same moniker — “Wizard Spider” — which CrowdStrike describes as “a Russia-nexus cybercriminal group behind the core development and distribution of a sophisticated arsenal of criminal tools, that allow them to run multiple different types of operations.”

“CrowdStrike Intelligence has observed WIZARD SPIDER targeting multiple countries and industries such as academia, energy, financial services, government, and more,” said Adam Meyers, head of intelligence at CrowdStrike.

This is not the U.S. government’s first swipe at the Trickbot group. In early October 2020, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that someone had launched a series of coordinated attacks designed to disrupt the Trickbot botnet. A week later, The Washington Post ran a story saying the attack on Trickbot was the work of U.S. Cyber Command, a branch of the Department of Defense headed by the director of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

Days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, a Ukrainian researcher leaked several years of internal chat logs from the Conti ransomware gang. Those candid conversations offer a fascinating view into the challenges of running a sprawling criminal enterprise with more than 100 salaried employees. They also showed that Conti enjoyed protection from prosecution by Russian authorities, as long as the hacker group took care not to target Russian organizations.

In addition, the leaked Conti chats confirmed there was considerable overlap in the operation and leadership of Conti, Trickbot and Ryuk.

CrowdStrike’s Meyers said while Wizard Spider operations have significantly reduced following the demise of Conti in June 2022, today’s sanctions will likely cause temporary disruptions for the cybercriminal group while they look for ways to circumvent the financial restrictions — which make it illegal to transact with or hold the assets of sanctioned persons or entities.

“Often, when cybercriminal groups are disrupted, they will go dark for a time only to rebrand under a new name,” Meyers said.

The prosecution of Kovalev and six other men named in today’s sanctions is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey. A copy of the now-unsealed 2012 indictment of Kovalev is here (PDF).

Two cybersecurity powerhouses, KnowBe4 and Crowdstrike, have come together to provide enhanced security for enterprises around the world.

KnowBe4’s SecurityCoach product is now integrated with the CrowdStrike Falcon platform, with the collaboration designed to help reduce high risk behavior by leveraging CrowdStrike’s security telemetry to discover security incidents, which trigger real-time security training from KnowBe4.

SecurityCoach helps IT and security professionals develop a strong security culture by enabling real-time security coaching of their users in response to high risk security behavior. Leveraging an organization’s existing security stack, IT and security professionals can configure real-time coaching campaigns to immediately deliver a SecurityTip to their users when a security event is detected.

“Our ecosystem of technology partners is growing rapidly, to enrich the support we provide to our customers and to fortify their organization’s human firewall,” said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO, KnowBe4. “KnowBe4 is proud to partner with CrowdStrike by seamlessly integrating our new SecurityCoach product with security telemetry delivered from the CrowdStrike Falcon platform. Our integration aims to deliver real-time security coaching and advice based on when security incidents occur to help end users enhance their cybersecurity knowledge and strengthen their role in contributing to a strong security culture.”

“By partnering with KnowBe4, we’re providing bite-sized, personalized security awareness lessons based on enriched insights derived from the CrowdStrike Falcon platform,” Geoff Swaine, VP of Global Programs, Store and Tech Alliances at CrowdStrike. “By seamlessly integrating CrowdStrike’s robust security data with KnowBe4’s large library of curated coaching modules, we’re empowering customers to minimize human risk, improve their security posture and stop breaches.”

KnowBe4 will provide step-by-step instructions and recommendations to help IT and security professionals achieve quick and pain-free integration and data syncing during the implementation process.

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