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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

The Darkode Cybercrime Forum, Up Close

Summary: A coordinated global law enforcement action took down Darkode[dot]me, an English-language cybercrime forum that served as a breeding ground for botnets and malware, with the U.S. Justice Department naming several individuals including Slovenian hacker Matjaz Skorjanc ("Iserdo"), author of the ButterFly Bot kit that sold for $500 to $2,000. The forum's later administrator, Swedish national Johan Anders Gudmunds ("Mafi"), is alleged to have run a botnet that at times exceeded 50,000 computers and used it to steal data from users on approximately 200,000,000 occasions, while the most recent admin "Sp3cial1st" is a core member of the Lizard Squad, which took responsibility for DDoS attacks that knocked Sony and Microsoft gaming networks offline for most of Christmas Day 2014.

What you should know: The takedown removed the forum but not its people: according to chats observed from Sp3c's accounts, Darkode was preparing to move to a Tor-accessible forum, so the same operators and their botnets persist under deeper cover. And one named defendant, Rory Stephen Guidry ("KMS"), had spent a year trying to expose Lizard Squad and get root access to destroy Darkode - the feds beat him to it by about a week, which is worth sitting with before assuming who is on which side.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Cybercrime & Law Enforcement
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