LONDON (AP) – Ireland´s health system was still struggling to restore its computers and tor drug market treat patients on Tuesday, four days after it shut down its entire IT system in response to a cyberattack.
Thousands of diagnostic appointments, cancer treatment clinics and surgeries have been canceled or delayed since a ransomware attack on Friday.
Authorities said hundreds of people have been deployed to tackle the attack, but it could be weeks before the health service can return to normal.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said Tuesday that the attack was a “heinous” one that targeted patients and “the Irish public.” Health Service Executive chief clinical officer Colm Henry said the attack had had “a profound impact on our ability to deliver care,” and that the disruptions would undoubtedly “mount in the coming days and weeks.”
More than 2,000 patient-facing IT systems are affected, with around 80,000 devices linked to such systems throughout the health service, Henry told Irish broadcaster RTE.
Authorities are prioritizing systems involving direct patient care diagnostics, such as radiology, radiotherapy and maternity and dark web darknet market list newborn services.
“That´s what our experts are focusing on this week, with external help, to ensure those services are not reliant on manual exchange of information,” he said.
Ransomware attacks are typically carried out by criminal hackers who scramble data, paralyzing victims´ networks, and demand a large payment to decrypt it.
Irish officials say a ransom has been demanded but they will not pay it.
Conti, a Russian-speaking ransomware group, was demanding $20 million, according to the ransom negotiation page on its darknet market site viewed by The Associated Press. The gang threatened Monday to “start publishing and selling your private information very soon” if the money was not paid.
“The government will not be paying any money,” Justice Minister Heather Humphreys told RTE.
“We will not be blackmailed.”
The Irish Association for darknet market list Emergency Medicine urged people not to turn up at hospitals’ emergency departments unless they have a genuinely urgent need to do so. It said that electronic ordering of blood tests, X-rays and scans is not available, and clinicians have no access to previous X-rays or scan results.
Many hospitals’ telephone systems are also not functioning because they are carried on computer networks, it added.
Patients have described their frustration about the attack, describing it as another torment thrown into the already difficult struggle to face illness during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eimear Cregg, 38, a primary school teacher who is fighting breast cancer, had radiation therapy briefly postponed while doctors sought to restore her records so they could treat her properly.
“This is a very cruel thing to do to vulnerable people,´´ she told The Associated Press. “We´re fighting every day as it is and this was just another curve ball that wasn´t needed.´´
The Health Service Executive said in a statement late Monday that there were “serious concerns about the implications for patient care arising from the very limited access to diagnostics, lab services and historical patient records.”
The attack has also shut down the system used to pay health care workers.
The health service said it was working methodically to assess and restore its computer systems.
“Our priority is keeping our patients safe and maintaining essential care and support services,” it said.
Ransomware attacks are an increasing problem for private companies and public bodies around the world.
T he Thai affiliate of Paris-based insurance company AXA and darknet market lists a public health provider in New Zealand were both dealing with ransomware attacks on Tuesday.
In the U.S., Dark Web market urls the nation´s largest fuel pipeline was hit with a ransomware attack earlier this month.
The disruption of the Colonial Pipeline caused long lines at gas stations due to distribution problems and panic-buying, draining supplies at thousands of gas stations.
LONDON, Feb 12 (Reuters) – The kingpin or dark web marketplaces web sites kingpins of the world’s biggest illicit credit card marketplace have retired after making an estimated fortune of over $1 billion in cryptocurrency, according to research by blockchain analysis firm Elliptic shared with Reuters.
The “Joker’s Stash” marketplace, darknet sites where stolen credit cards and identity data traded hands for bitcoin and other digital coins, ceased operations this month, Elliptic said on Friday, dark websites in what it called a rare example of such a site bowing out on its own terms.
Criminal use of cryptocurrencies has long worried regulators, with U.S.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde calling last month for tighter oversight.
While terrorist financing and money laundering are top of law-enforcement concerns, narcotics, fraud, scams and ransomware are among the chief areas of illegal use of digital currencies, darkmarket according to Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson.
Joker’s Stash was launched in 2014, with its anonymous founder “JokerStash” – which could be one or more people – posting messages in both Russian and English, Elliptic said.
It was available on the regular web and via the darknet market, which hosts marketplaces selling contraband.
The darknet market, or darkweb, is a part of the internet that isn’t visible to regular search engines, and requires a form of browser that hides a user’s identity to access.
Elliptic, whose clients include law-enforcement agencies and financial firms, estimates that JokerStash raked in more than $1 billion in profits in cryptocurrencies over the years, at current prices.
Bitcoin has soared from just over $300 in 2014 to hit a record $49,000 on Friday, pulling up other coins in its wake.
The blockchain firm reached the over $1 billion figure by analysing the marketplace’s revenue and the fees it charged, and said it was at the lower end of its estimates.
In December, Interpol and the FBI seized the domain names used by the site, but it continued operating via the darknet market, Elliptic said website Cyber-security firm Digital Shadows also said in December that the darknet site remained live after the seizure.
Interpol did not respond to a request for comment.
The FBI could not be reached outside regular business hours.
Trading illegal credit cards is “a billion-dollar business,” said Robinson. “It’s also providing a means of cashing out other types of cyber-criminality.”
On Jan. 15. Joker’s Stash posted a message announcing it would close permanently on Feb.
15. In fact it went offline on Feb. 3, Elliptic said.
“Joker goes on a well-deserved retirement,” said the message, which Reuters saw a screenshot of. “It’s time for us to leave forever.”
Accompanying it was a picture of the 1862 painting “Sta´nczyk” by Polish artist Jan Matejko, which depicts a court jester sitting forlornly in a bedroom as a party goes on in the background.
What do Dunkin’ Donuts, Fortnite, Sprint and the Dow Jones company all have in common? They’ve all suffered from massive hacks in 2019 alone.
After every data breach, victim data often surfaces on the encrypted “hidden” internet known as the , a network of sites that can only be accessed with . Dark web darknet markets links operate like the ecommerce websites we shop on every day, darknet market links but often trade in illicit goods like drugs, weapons and dark darknet market url stolen data.
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Finding our personal data on the dark web was far too…
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Because so many companies now capture and store personal information, darknet market lists hacking has become a profitable profession, darknet market links said Terbium Labs vice president of research Emily Wilson. One hacker known as Gnosticplayers has allegedly leaked over 840 million user records. His most recent dump of 26.42 million records .
“The dark web has provided the raw materials that these fraudsters need to build out scalable criminal empires,” said Wilson. “We’re talking about identity theft of millions of people, including children.”
WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) – An international operation targeting trafficking in opioids on a clandestine part of the internet called the darknet market has led to about 150 arrests in the United States and Europe and the seizure of drugs, cash and darknet markets links guns, U.S.
and European authorities said on Tuesday.
The crackdown, called Operation dark market list HunTor, dark darknet market list was announced at a U.S. Justice Department news conference where Deputy U.S Attorney General Lisa Monaco warned cyberspace drug sellers: “There is no dark market link internet. We can and we will shed a light.”
Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, deputy director of the international police agency Europol, hailed the results of Operation Dark HunTor as “spectacular.” He said the operation sends a message that “no one is beyond the reach of law enforcement, even on the dark web.” The darknet market and dark web are related terms concerning a part of the internet accessible only using a specialized web browser and the assortment of internet sites residing there.
An opioid epidemic has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone in the past two decades due to overdoses from prescription painkillers and illegal substances, constituting an enduring public health crisis.
The Dark HunTor operation produced arrests of 150 people accused of being drug traffickers and others accused of engaging in sales of illicit goods and services.
There were 65 arrests in the United States, 47 in Germany, 24 in the United Kingdom, four each in the Netherlands and Italy, three in France, two in Switzerland and one in Bulgaria, darkmarket the Justice Department said.
The department added that the operation resulted in seizures of more than $31.6 million in cash and virtual currencies as well as 45 firearms.
It added that about 234 kilograms (515 pounds) of drugs including more than 200,000 ecstasy, fentanyl, oxycodone, hydrocodone and methamphetamine pills were seized, along with counterfeit medicines.
Kenneth Polite, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said such trafficking presents “a global threat and it requires a global response.”
The Justice Department said the crackdown built on operations conducted in late 2020 and early 2021 to disrupt dark websites web trafficking.
It said that in January, an international crackdown targeted DarkMarket, the world’s largest dark web international marketplace.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Will Dunham)
Earlier this month, hundreds of companies from the US to Sweden were entangled in the , a company that offers network infrastructure to businesses around the world.
The Kaseya hack comes on the heels of other headline-grabbing cyberattacks like the and the . In each instance, criminals had the opportunity to make off with millions — and much of the ransoms were paid in Bitcoin.
“We have to remember the primary reason for creating Bitcoin in the first place was to provide anonymity and secure, trustless and borderless transaction capabilities,” says Keatron Evans, principal security researcher at .
As Bitcoin grows more prominent in darknet markets around the world, cybercrooks have found a vital tool to help them move illegal assets quickly and pseudonymously. And by all accounts, the attacks are only becoming more common.
Ransomware on the rise
Ransomware is a cybercrime that involves ransoming personal and business data back to the owner of that data.
First, a criminal hacks into a private network. The hack is accomplished through various tactics, including phishing, social engineering and preying upon users’ weak passwords.
Once network access is gained, the criminal locks important files within the network using encryption. The owner can’t access the files unless they pay a ransom. Nowadays, cybercriminals tend to request their ransoms in cryptocurrencies.
The FBI ransomware attacks accounted for at least $144.35 million in Bitcoin ransoms from 2013 to 2019.
These attacks are scalable and can be highly targeted or darknet market websites broad, ensnaring anyone who happens to click a link or install a particular software program.
This allows a small team of cybercrooks to ransom data back to organizations of all sizes — and the tools needed to hack into a small business or multinational cooperation are largely the same.
Private citizens, businesses, and state and national governments have all fallen victim — and many decided to pay ransoms.
Today’s business world depends on computer networks to keep track of administrative and financial data. When that data disappears, it can be impossible for the organization to function properly. This provides a large incentive to pay up.
Although victims of ransomware attacks are encouraged to report the crime to federal authorities, there’s no US law that says you have to report attacks (). Given this, there’s little authoritative data about the number of attacks or ransom payments.
However, a recent study from Threatpost only 20% of victims pay up. Whatever the actual number is, the FBI against paying ransoms because there’s no guarantee that you’ll get the data back, and paying ransoms creates further incentive for ransomware attacks.
Why do hackers like cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency provides a helpful ransom tool for cybercrooks. Rather than being an aberration or misuse, the ability to make anonymous (or pseudonymous) transfers is a of cryptocurrency.
“Bitcoin can be acquired fairly easily. It’s decentralized and readily
available in almost any country,” says Koen Maris, a cybersecurity expert and advisory board member at IOTA Foundation.
Different cryptocurrencies feature different levels of anonymity. Some cryptocurrencies, like Monero and Zcash, specialize in confidentiality and may even provide a higher level of security than Bitcoin for cybercriminals.
That’s because Bitcoin isn’t truly anonymous — it’s pseudonymous. Through careful detective work and analysis, it appears possible to trace and recoup Bitcoin used for ransoms, as the FBI after the Colonial Pipeline hack. So Bitcoin isn’t necessarily used by ransomers simply because of security features. Bitcoin transfers are also fast, irreversible and easily verifiable. Once a ransomware victim has agreed to pay, the criminal can watch the transfer go through on the public blockchain.
After the ransom is sent, it’s usually gone forever. Then crooks can either exchange the Bitcoin for another currency — crypto or fiat — or transfer the Bitcoin to another wallet for safekeeping.
While it’s not clear exactly when or how Bitcoin became associated with ransomware, hackers, cybercrooks, and crypto-enthusiasts are all computer-savvy subcultures with a natural affinity for new tech, and Bitcoin was adopted for illicit activities online soon after its creation. One of Bitcoin’s first popular uses was currency for transactions on the dark web. The was among the early marketplaces that accepted Bitcoin.
Financial impact
Ransomware is big business. Cybercriminals made off just under $350 million worth of cryptocurrency in ransomware attacks last year, . That’s an increase of over 300% in the amount of ransom payments from the year before.
The COVID-19 pandemic set the stage for a surge in ransomware attacks. With vast tracts of the global workforce moving out of well-fortified corporate IT environments into home offices, cybercriminals had more surface area to attack than ever.
According to , the organizational changes needed to accommodate remote work opened up more businesses for cybercrime exploits, with Coalition’s policyholders reporting a 35% increase in funds transfer fraud and social engineering claims since the beginning of the pandemic.
It’s not just the number of attacks that is increasing, but the stakes, too. A from Palo Alto Networks estimates that the average ransom paid in 2020 was over $300,000 — a year-over-year increase of more than 170%.
When an organization falls prey to cybercrime, the ransom is only one component of the financial cost. There are also remediation expenses — including lost orders, business downtime, consulting fees, and other unplanned expenses.
The report from Sophos found that the total cost of remediating a ransomware attack for a business averaged $1.85 million in 2021, dark markets web marketplaces up from $761,000 in 2020.
Many companies now buy cyber insurance for financial protection. But as ransomware insurance claims increase, the insurance industry is also dealing with the fallout.
Globally, the price of cyber insurance has , according to a new report from Howden, an international insurance broker. The increase is likely due to the growing cost these attacks cause for insurance providers.
A cyber insurance policy generally covers a business’s liability from a data breach, such as expenses (i.e., ransom payments) and legal fees. Some policies may also help with contacting the businesses customers who were affected by the breach and repairing damaged computer systems.
Cyber insurance payouts now account for of all premiums collected, which is the break-even point for the providers.
“We noticed cyber insurers are paying ransom on behalf of their customers. That looks like a bad idea to me, as it will only lead to more ransom attacks,” says Maris. “Having said that, I fully understand the argument: the company either pays or it goes out of business. Only time will tell whether investing in ransom payments rather than in appropriate cybersecurity is a viable survival strategy.”
Early adopters
The AIDS Trojan, or PC Cyborg Trojan, is the first known ransomware attack.
The attack began in 1989 when an AIDS researcher distributed thousands of copies of a floppy disk containing malware. When people used the floppy disk, it encrypted the computer’s files with a message that demanded a payment sent to a PO Box in Panama.
Bitcoin wouldn’t come along until almost two decades later.
In 2009, Bitcoin’s mysterious founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, created the blockchain network by mining the first block in the chain — the genesis block.
Bitcoin was quickly adopted as the go-to currency for the dark web market urls web. While it’s unclear exactly when Bitcoin became popular in ransomware attacks, the 2013 CryptoLocker attack definitely put Bitcoin in the spotlight.
CryptoLocker infected more than 250,000 computers over a few months. The criminals made off with about $3 million in Bitcoin and pre-paid vouchers. It took an internationally coordinated operation to take the ransomware offline in 2014.
Since then, Bitcoin has moved closer to the mainstream, and ransomware attacks have become much easier to carry out.
Early ransomware attackers generally had to develop malware programs themselves. Nowadays, ransomware can be bought as a service, just like other software.
Ransomware-as-a-service allows criminals with little technical know-how to “rent” ransomware from a provider, tor drug market which can be quickly employed against victims. Then if the job succeeds, the ransomware provider gets a cut.
Future legislation
In light of the recent high-profile ransomware attacks, calls for new legislation are growing louder in Washington.
President Joe Biden issued an in May “on improving the nation’s cybersecurity.” The order is geared toward strengthening the federal government’s response to cybercrime, and it looks like more legislation is on the way.
The was recently introduced by a bipartisan group of senators. The bill aims to ramp up penalties for cyberattacks that impact critical infrastructure, so the Justice Department would have an easier time charging criminals in foreign countries under the new act.
States are also taking their own stands against cybercrime: have proposed legislation to outlaw ransomware payments. North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas are all considering new laws that would outlaw taxpayer money from being used in ransom payments. New York’s law goes a step further and could outright ban private businesses from paying cybercrime ransoms.
“I think the concept of what cryptocurrency is and how it works is something that most legislative bodies worldwide struggle with understanding,” says Evans. “It’s difficult to legislate what we don’t really understand.”
What do Dunkin’ Donuts, Fortnite, Sprint and darknet market list the Dow Jones company all have in common? They’ve all suffered from massive hacks in 2019 alone.
After every data breach, victim data often surfaces on the encrypted “hidden” internet known as the , a network of sites that can only be accessed with . Dark web darknet markets links operate like the ecommerce websites we shop on every day, darknet market markets but often trade in illicit goods like drugs, weapons and stolen data.
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Because so many companies now capture and dark web sites store personal information, hacking has become a profitable profession, dark market onion said Terbium Labs vice president of research Emily Wilson. One hacker known as Gnosticplayers has allegedly leaked over 840 million user records. His most recent dump of 26.42 million records .
“The dark web has provided the raw materials that these fraudsters need to build out scalable criminal empires,” said Wilson. “We’re talking about identity theft of millions of people, including children.”
LISBON, March 17 (Reuters) – The closure of nightclubs and Dark markets bars during COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe is likely behind a significant drop in the use of party drug MDMA last year but consumption of other substances such as cocaine and dark web market links cannabis kept rising, an EU study said on Thursday.
Conducted by the Lisbon-based European Union drugs agency (EMCDDA), a study of wastewater from nearly 45 million people in 75 European cities revealed that the use of most drugs, except MDMA, dark web markets increased last year.
Around half of the cities where the study was conducted, Darknet Websites ranging from Barcelona to Oslo, recorded increases in detected residues of cocaine, amphetamine, cannabis and methamphetamine in wastewater.
“The results show both a rise and spread for most of the substances studied, reflecting a drugs problem that is both pervasive and complex,” EMCDDA director Alexis Goosdeel said in a statement.
A 2021 report by the United Nations showed a big increase in drug users worldwide due to the pandemic.
It said many turned to drugs due to poverty, unemployment and inequality.
MDMA was the only drug where residues declined in the majority of the cities studied, darknet market links possibly due to pandemic-driven closures of nightlife venues where this drug is often consumed, EMCDDA said.
The study also showed drugs were now reported more evenly across European cities compared to previous years when more diverse geographical patterns were observed.
Cocaine, for instance, darkmarket link remains most prominent in western and darknet market links southern European cities but is increasingly found in eastern Europe.
Methamphetamine, historically concentrated in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, is now found in cities across the continent.
The study said the use of cannabis appeared to have been less affected by COVID-19 lockdowns than other drugs. In a report last year, EMCDDA said cannabis users were stocking up via the darknet market to avoid shortages during lockdowns.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Footage has emerged of the inside of a five-storey abandoned underground NATO bunker built with 31inch thick concrete walls in Germany allegedly converted by criminal gangs into a high tech data centre to host darknet market websites.
An Australian man was arrested on Monday accused of running a $220million illegal darkweb marketplace – called the biggest in the world and ‘ for criminals’ – after ha was tracked following the bunker’s discovery.
The joint investigation by Australian Federal Police, Scotland Yard, the , Europol, and German authorities, dark web darknet market links among others, arrested the man, 34, as he allegedly tried flee across the Danish border into .
The man, known only as Julian K, is the alleged operator of DarkMarket and has been detained by German investigators.
The 5,000sq m former NATO bunker located in south-western Germany (pictured) was built with 31inch thick concrete walls and was converted into a data facility called CyberBunker to host darknet websites after being bought in 2012
A night-vision aerial view of the aboveground portion of the bunker containing a gatehouse, office, helipad and entrance building (pictured) which descends another four levels below the surface
A screenshot of the illegal website allegedly run by the arrested Australian man and temporarily hosted on CyberBunker which displays drugs for sale (pictured)
German police officers walk through the gate at the perimeter of the former Cold War bunker (pictured) converted into an illegal data centre after it was raided in 2019
DarkMarket was shut down on Monday and its new servers, located in Ukraine and Moldova after relocating from the bunker, were taken off the internet, prosecutors in the city of Koblenz said.
‘Until its closure, DarkMarket was probably the largest marketplace worldwide on the darknet market, with almost 500,000 users and more than 2400 sellers,’ prosecutors said.
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More than 320,000 transactions were conducted via the website including the sale of drugs, counterfeit money, stolen or falsified credit cards, anonymous SIM cards and malware.
The transactions were reportedly worth a total of 4,650 bitcoin and 12,800 monero – two cryptocurrencies – for dark market an equivalent sum of more than $221million.
The servers will be forensically examined by authorities to uncover information about the website’s operations and criminal network.
The solid concrete bunker (pictured) was built to withstand a nuclear blast is located in the south-western German town of Traben-Trarbach
Two of the entrances to the disused bunker (pictured) which was raided by police in 2019 after being bought by a private foundation based in Denmark in 2012
The accused man has already fronted a German court and been denied bail – to be transferred to a German prison in the next few days.
He has reportedly refused to speak to investigators or court officials.
German prosecutors said the man was trying to flee Denmark into Germany when arrested and was travelling through Europe either on holiday or conducting business for the illegal website.
They said the investigation around DarkMarket originated after the discovery of the data processing centre run by criminals in the 5,000sqm former unused bunker in south-west Germany.
The discovery of the illegal data centre in the bunker led to the arrest of multiple people accused of being part of a criminal network and being an accessory to hundreds of thousands of illegal transactions.
Some went on trial in October (pictured)
The data facility hosted illegal websites, which included DarkMarket temporarily, and was shut down in 2019.
The building, constructed by the West-German military, in the mid-1970s descended five-storeys below the surface and was built with 31inch thick concrete walls to withstand a nuclear blast.
A meteorological division of the military used the facility after the Cold War until 2012 to forecast weather patterns where German soldiers were deployed.
The building was sold to a foundation based in Denmark in 2012 after officials could find no other buyers for dark web darknet market links the vacant facility.
A number of people were arrested after the discovery of the data centre – accused of being part of a criminal network and being accessories to hundreds of thousands of illegal transactions involving prohibited material such as drugs and hacking tools.
Some already went on trial in October.
The darkweb was originally developed for the United States military but has been overrun by criminals because they can conceal their identity on the platform.
Server rows constructed in the bunker which is made of solid concrete and climate controlled (pictured).
The data centre was dismantled after the raid and multiple people linked to the centre were put on trial
An alleged fraudster dubbed The Crocodile of Wall Street over claims she laundered $4.5 billion in has been freed on bail – but her husband has been ordered to stay in jail.
Heather Morgan was freed by a judge Monday, pending trial by a federal court.
But her husband Ilya Lichtenstein remains behind bars due to prosecutors’ fears that he could seek immunity in , where he is also a citizen.
Judge Beryl Howell said on Monday that 31-year-old Morgan, referred as ‘Razzlekahn’ due to her rapping background, was no longer held in custody after the government deemed that she wasn’t as involved in the planning of the alleged crimes as her 34-year-ld husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, who was largely in control of the funds.
The judge also considered Morgan’s health issues as a factor, after she had recently had surgery to remove a lump in her breast.
With follow-up appointments expected, she will be closely monitored with an ankle bracelet GPS monitor while she is under house arrest.
Morgan has also been given restrictions on computer use, and a ban on carrying out cryptocurrency transactions.
The defense told the court that both defendants would guarantee to appear for all remaining court dates, and pointed out that both of their families, who were in court, were willing to bet their homes on it.
However, Howell finally ruled that there would be a significant ‘flight risk’ for Lichtenstein and agreed with federal prosecutors who insisted that just a portion of the millions in cryptocurrency that the couple stole could buy a new house or ‘buy each of their parents a private island.’
The judge also shared her concerns that Lichtenstein, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Russia, could seek refuge in a eastern European country, where he could possibly be granted immunity.
In this courtroom sketch, attorney Sam Enzer, center, sits between Heather Morgan, left, and her husband, Ilya ‘Dutch’ Lichtenstein, darknet market lists in federal court on February 8, 2022, in New York.
The couple are accused of conspiring to launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency stolen from the 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange
This illustration photo shows Heather Morgan, also known as ‘Razzlekhan,’ on a phone in front of the Bitcoin logo displayed on a screen. Along with Lichtenstein, Morgan has been arrested for the couple’s Bitcoin laundering scheme but has been freed after paying bail
Federal prosecutors also revealed that Lichtenstein had a file on his computer titled ‘passport ideas,’ which included several darknet market vendors that sell passports, bank cards and other forms of identification.
The New York couple was arrested earlier in February after they conspired to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange platform, and currently estimated at $4.5 billion.
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Both are accused of using several techniques to launder Bitcoin, including using fake identifies to create accounts; coding computer programs to execute fast, automated transactions; depositing stolen funds in several accounts across one crypto exchange to cover their previous transactions; converting Bitcoin to other forms of cryptocurrency; and creating U.S.-based business accounts to wire their funds and dark darknet market link make them seem legitimate.
Over five years, a hacker allegedly laundered 119,754 bitcoin through 2,000 transactions on Bitfinex’s Onion Dark website before transferring the crypto funds into Lichtenstein’s digital wallet.
The couple could face up to 25 years years behind bars if found guilty.
Lichtenstein (back) has not been granted bail after prosecutors alerted the judge of his Russian citizenship, where he could seek immunity, if he were no longer held into custody
Morgan has been labelled as an ‘integral player’ in the cryptocurrency laundering scheme but prosecutors identified Lichtenstein as the ‘brain’ behind the scheme’s operations
Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange registered in the British Virgin Islands.
In August 2016, hackers were able to breach its security firewall before stealing about 120,000 bitcoin from its customers.
The amount that was stolen was worth roughly $70 million at the time, when the price of bitcoin was around $600.
At the time, Bitfinex announced to its customers that they would lose 36 percent of their funds to compensate for the losses from the incident.
It also created special digital tokens that were able to keep track of customers’ losses.
Some of the tokens could exchanged for shares of iFinex, the company that operates Bitfinex, while other tokens could be redeemed if the stolen bitcoins were recovered in the future.
The US Department of Justice announced that it would create a special judicial process for victims of the hack to reclaim their losses.
The hackers have never been identified.
Morgan and Lichtenstein were arrested by federal prosecutors of laundering the bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex, but they are not being accused for actually stealing the bitcoin in the hack.
Authorities were able to recover $3.6B after seizing couple’s private keys to digital wallets after their arrest earlier this month.
This is part of our about how innovators are thinking up new ways to make you — and the world around you — smarter.
“Are you a hacker?”
A Las Vegas driver asks me this after I tell him I’m headed to Defcon at Caesars Palace. I wonder if his sweat isn’t just from the 110℉ heat blasting the city.
All week, a cloud of paranoia looms over Las Vegas, as hackers from around the world swarm Sin City for Black Hat and Defcon, two back-to-back cybersecurity conferences taking place in the last week of July. At Caesars Palace, where Defcon is celebrating its 25th anniversary, the UPS store posts a sign telling guests it won’t accept printing requests from USB thumb drives. You can’t be too careful with all those hackers in town.
Everywhere I walk I see hackers — in tin-foiled fedoras, wearing . Mike Spicer, a security researcher, carries a 4-foot-high backpack holding a “Wi-Fi cactus.” Think wires, antennas, colored lights and 25 Wi-Fi scanners that, in seven hours, captured 75 gigabytes of data from anyone foolish enough to use public Wi-Fi. I see a woman thank him for holding the door open for her, all while his backpack sniffs for unencrypted passwords and personal information it can grab literally out of thin air.
You’d think that, with all the potential threats literally walking about town, Vegas’ director of technology and innovation, Mike Sherwood, would be stressed out. It’s his job to protect thousands of smart sensors around the city that could jam traffic, blast water through pipes or cause a blackout if anything goes haywire.
And yet he’s sitting right in front of me at Black Hat, smiling.
His entire three-person team, in fact, dark web market urls is at Black Hat so they can learn how to stave off future attacks. Machine learning is guarding Las Vegas’ network for them.
Broadly speaking, artificial intelligence refers to machines carrying out jobs that we would consider smart. Machine learning is a subset of AI in which computers learn and adapt for themselves.
Now a number of cybersecurity companies are turning to machine learning in an attempt to stay one step ahead of professionals working to steal industrial secrets, disrupt national infrastructures, hold computer networks for ransom and even influence elections. Las Vegas, which relies on machine learning to keep the bad guys out, offers a glimpse into a future when more of us will turn to our AI overlords for protection.
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Man and machine
At its most basic, machine learning for security involves feeding massive amounts of data to the AI program, which the software then analyzes to spot patterns and recognize what is, and isn’t, a threat. If you do this millions of times, the machine becomes smart enough to prevent intrusions and malware on its own.
Theoretically.
Machine learning naysayers argue that hackers can write malware to trick AI. Sure the software can learn really fast, but it stumbles when it encounters data its creators didn’t anticipate. Remember how trolls turned ? It makes a good case against relying on AI for cybersecurity, where the stakes are so high.
Even so, that has protected Las Vegas’ network and thousands of sensors for darknet market links the last 18 months.
Since last February, Darktrace has defended the city from cyberattacks, around the clock. That comes in handy when you have only three staffers handling cybersecurity for people, 3,000 employees and thousands of online devices. It was worse when Sherwood joined two years ago.
“That was the time where we only had one security person on the team,” Sherwood tells me. “That was when I thought, ‘I need help and I can’t afford to hire more people.'”
He’d already used Darktrace in his previous job as deputy director of public safety and city technology in Irvine, California, and he thought the software could help in Las Vegas. Within two weeks, Darktrace found malware on Las Vegas’ network that was sending out data.
“We didn’t even know,” Sherwood says. “Traditional scanners weren’t picking it up.”
Pattern recognition
I’m standing in front of a tattoo parlor in , a little more than 4 miles from Caesars Palace. Across the street, I see three shuttered stores next to two bail bonds shops.
I’m convinced the taxi driver dropped me off at the wrong location.
This is supposed to be Vegas’ $1 million Innovation District project? Where are the in the area? Or the ?
I look again at the Innovation District map on my phone. I’m in the right place. Despite the rundown stores, trailer homes and empty lots, this corner of downtown Vegas is much smarter than it looks.
That’s because hidden on the roads and dark web link inside all the streetlights, traffic signals and pipes are thousands of sensors. They’re tracking the air quality, controlling the lights and water, counting the cars traveling along the roads, and providing Wi-Fi.
Officials chose the city’s rundown area to serve as its Innovation District because they wanted to redevelop it, with help from technology, Sherwood says. There’s just one problem: All those connected devices are potential targets for a cyberattack. That’s where Darktrace comes in.
Sherwood willingly banks on Darktrace to protect the city’s entire network because the software comes at machine learning from a different angle. Most machine learning tools rely on brute force: cramming themselves with thousands of terabytes of data so they can learn through plenty of trial and error. That’s how IBM’s Deep Blue computer learned to defeat Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, in a best-of-seven match in 1997. In the security world, that data describes malware signatures — essentially algorithms that identify specific viruses or worms, for instance.
Darktrace, in contrast, darkmarket 2024 doesn’t look at a massive database of malware that’s come before. Instead, it looks for patterns of human behavior. It learns within a week what’s considered normal behavior for users and sets off alarms when things fall out of pattern, like when someone’s computer suddenly starts encrypting loads of files.
Rise of the machines?
Still, it’s probably too soon to hand over all security responsibilities to artificial intelligence, says , a security professor and director of Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab Security and Privacy Institute. He predicts it’ll take at least 10 years before we can safely use AI to keep bad things out.
“It’s really easy for AI to miss things,” Brumley tells me over the phone. “It’s not a perfect solution, and you still need people to make important choices.”
Brumley’s team last year built an AI machine that won beating out other AI entries. A few days later, their contender took on some of the world’s best hackers at Defcon. They came in last.
Sure, machines can help humans fight the scale and speed of attacks, but it’ll take years before they can actually call the shots, says Brumley.
That’s because the model for AI right now is still data cramming, which — by today’s standards — is actually kind of dumb.
But it was still good enough to , making him the de facto poster child for man outsmarted by machine.
“I always remind people it was a rematch, because I won the first one,” he tells me, chuckling, while sitting in a room at Caesars Palace during Defcon. Today Kasparov, 54, is the which is why he’s been giving talks around the country on why humans need to work with AI in cybersecurity.
He tells me machines can now learn too fast for humans to keep up, darknet market no matter if it’s chess or cybersecurity. “The vigilance and the precision required to beat the machine — it’s virtually impossible to reach in human competition,” Kasparov says.
Nobody’s perfect
About two months before Defcon, I’m at Darktrace’s headquarters in New York, where company executives show me how the system works.
On a screen, I see connected computers and printers sending data to Darktrace’s network as it monitors for behavior that’s out of the ordinary.
“For example, Sue doesn’t usually access this much internal data,” Nancy Karches, Darktrace’s sales manager, tells me. “This is straying from Sue’s normal pattern.” So Darktrace shuts down an attack most likely waged by another machine.
“When you have machine-based attacks, the attacks are moving at a machine speed from one to the other,” says Darktrace CEO Nicole Eagan. “It’s hard for humans to keep up with that.”
But what happens when AI becomes the norm? When everyone’s using AI, says Brumley, hackers will turn all their attention on finding the machines’ flaws — something they’re not doing yet.
“We’ve seen again and again, the reason new solutions work better is because attackers aren’t targeting its weaknesses,” he says. “As soon as it became popular, it started working worse and worse.”
About 60 percent of cybersecurity experts at Black Hat believe hackers will use AI for attacks by 2018, according to a survey from the security company Cylance.
“Machine learning security is not foolproof,” says Hyrum Anderson, principal data scientist at cybersecurity company Endgame, who and their tools. Anderson expects AI-based malware will rapidly make thousands of attempts to find code that the AI-based security misses.
“The bad guy can do this with trial and error, and it will cost him months,” Anderson says. “The bot can learn to do this, and it will take hours.”
Anderson says he expects cybercriminals will eventually sell AI malware on darknet markets 2024 markets to wannabe hackers.
For now, Sherwood feels safe having the city protected by an AI machine, which has shielded Las Vegas’ network for the past year. But he also realizes a day will come when hackers could outsmart the AI. That’s why Sherwood and his Las Vegas security team are at Black Hat: to learn how to use human judgment and darknet markets 2024 creativity while the machine parries attacks as rapidly as they come in.
Kasparov has been trying to make that point for the last 20 years. He sees machines doing about 80 percent to 90 percent of the work, but he believes they’ll never get to what he calls “that last decimal place.”
“You will see more and more advanced destruction on one side, and that will force you to become more creative on the positive side,” he tells me.
“Human creativity is how we make the difference.”
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