Archive for Crime

A Member Of The REvil Gang Has Been Extradited To The US To Stand Trial

Posted in Commentary with tags on March 12, 2022 by itnerd

I’ve been saying for a very long time that people behind cybercrimes need to be brought to justice 100% of the time. Now I finally get my wish. The U.S. Department of Justice announced that alleged REvil ransomware affiliate, Yaroslav Vasinskyi, was extradited to the United States last week to stand trial for the Kaseya cyberattack:

According to the indictment, Vasinskyi was allegedly responsible for the July 2, 2021, ransomware attack against Kaseya. In the alleged attack against Kaseya, Vasinskyi caused the deployment of malicious Sodinokibi/REvil code throughout a Kaseya product that caused the Kaseya production functionality to deploy REvil ransomware to “endpoints” on Kaseya customer networks. After the remote access to Kaseya endpoints was established, the ransomware was executed on those computers, which resulted in the encryption of data on computers of organizations around the world that used Kaseya software.

Through the deployment of Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware, the defendant allegedly left electronic notes in the form of a text file on the victims’ computers. The notes included a web address leading to an open-source privacy network known as Tor, as well as the link to a publicly accessible website address the victims could visit to recover their files. Upon visiting either website, victims were given a ransom demand and provided a virtual currency address to use to pay the ransom. If a victim paid the ransom, the defendant provided the decryption key and the victim then was able to access their files. If a victim did not pay the ransom, the defendant typically posted the victim’s stolen data or claimed they sold the stolen data to third parties, and victims remained unable to access their files.

Vasinskyi is charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, damage to protected computers, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted of all counts, he faces a total penalty of 115 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Vasinskyi, a Ukrainian national with ties to a ransomware group linked to Russia-based actors, was taken into custody in Poland where he remained held by authorities pending proceedings in connection with his requested extradition to the United States, pursuant to the extradition treaty between the United States and the Republic of Poland. Vasinskyi was transported to Dallas by U.S. law enforcement authorities where he arrived on March 3. He made his initial court appearance and was arraigned today in the Northern District of Texas.

Nice! Hopefully others get their day in court so that they can get the punishment that they deserve. Because these sorts of crimes should never go unpunished.

Help The FBI To Find 250 Sextortion Victims

Posted in Commentary with tags , on July 11, 2015 by itnerd

Here’s the good news. Lucas Michael Chansler is a 26-year-old sexual predator that was sentenced to 105 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of child pornography production. The reason why this scumbag is in jail is because he tricked roughly 350 teenage girls from 26 states into giving him explicit pictures of themselves by posing as a teen boy and befriending them online before threatening to distribute the photos on social media. That’s where the bad news starts. There are 250 victims that the FBI has not been able to identify.

That’s where you come in. The FBI has posted a list of aliases, email addresses, MySpace accounts and AIM logins that this scumbag used. So if you suspect that you, or someone you know, may have been victimized by this scumbag, contact the FBI or NCMEC right away. Because it’s really important that these victims are found and given the help that they need.

To highlight how important this is, watch this video with FBI Special Agent Larry Meyer who is the man responsible for taking this scumbag off the streets:

Website Named “Ghetto Tracker” Causes Fury

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on September 9, 2013 by itnerd

Well, let’s see how you can get press for all the wrong reasons.

Let’s start with a idea to crowd source information about areas with high crime rates that people might want to avoid. Build a website around it and launch it with the name “Ghetto Tracker.”

What could possibly go wrong?

Predictably it blew up. Take the coverage from Gawker as an example. The site was then taken down, brought back up after some changes to the graphics and the name for good measure (it was re-branded “Good Part Of Town”), and then taken down again. Sort of.

Well, the name is offensive because of what it implies, which is that this site helps people avoid parts of a given city that has visible minorities. It also didn’t help that the graphics were all of smiling white people, who were then replaced by smiling black people when the controversy exploded. But what really doesn’t help is the fact that the data is crowd sourced. That means that people are giving opinions and not facts when it comes to parts of town that one might want to avoid. That’s a #fail if I ever saw one.

I admit that I might get lit up like a bonfire by saying this. But I think that this idea has some merit. I can’t count the number of times where I’ve gone to a US city on business and unknowingly driven through a neighborhood where I felt less than safe, and I later found out it was absolutely not safe and I should not have been anywhere near that area. However, I would only go for this If, and only if, the data that determines what a bad part of town is comes from actual crime statistics rather than human beings. Take items like murder, petty crime, carjacking, etc. Use all of those to come up with a score, sort of along the lines of the passer rating in the NFL and use that to make the call. If the score passes a certain threshold, it is to be avoided. Doing it this way means that It’s empirical and without biases. If you wanted to get creative, add it to Google Maps or your GPS system along with the checkboxes that say things like “avoid tolls” and “avoid highways.”

Am I out to lunch here or am I making more sense than the authors of this website? Post a comment and share your thoughts. Please be kind.

Man Steals Computer From Church And Demands Removal Of Porn Filter #FAIL

Posted in Commentary with tags , on August 9, 2013 by itnerd

Sometimes you have to just shake your head. A guy steals a computer from a church. If that isn’t bad enough he contacts a software company who makes the porn filter that was installed on the computer to demand that be removed. The computer had Covenant Eyes installed on it, and when they started to get calls from the thief about removing the software, they contacted the church who contacted police. Needless to say the cops were able to put him jail rather quickly.

Clearly he’s no criminal mastermind. Or his mind was on other things. It could be either from what I see.

 

NYC Mayor Says iDevice Thefts Have Increased Crime

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on December 29, 2012 by itnerd

There’s a story in the New York Times where New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has released stats that have crime up in the city due to iDevice thefts:

“If you just took away the jump in Apple, we’d be down for the year,” said Marc La Vorgna, the mayor’s press secretary.

On the radio, Mr. Bloomberg said that Apple products appeared to be the preference for many thieves, noting that he was not including thefts of competing devices, like the Samsung Galaxy, in his count.

And he offered some practical advice for listeners, urging them to keep their devices in an interior, hard-to-reach pocket.

“Put it in a pocket in sort of a more body-fitting, tighter clothes, that you can feel if it was — if somebody put their hand in your pocket, not just an outside coat pocket,” the mayor said.

Having almost been iMugged several years ago, I can say that’s good advice.

One thing to note, it seems that Samsung could only wish to be that popular. After all, if your product is so popular that it is blamed for an increase in crime, that can’t be bad for business. But it is bad for crime stats and those who are victims of crime.