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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

A Tough Week for IP Address Scammers

Summary: On May 14, South Carolina U.S. Attorney Sherri Lydon filed criminal wire fraud charges against Amir Golestan and his Charleston-based company Micfo LLC, alleging they used a network of 11 phony shelf companies and false aliases to obtain more than 735,000 IPv4 addresses from ARIN. A day earlier, an arbitration panel ordered Micfo to pay $350,000 in ARIN's legal fees and surrender any of those 735,000 IPs it had not already sold, after Micfo's December 2018 lawsuit seeking to block ARIN's revocation was denied in court.

Why it matters: With a single IPv4 address worth $15-$25, the indictment describes Golestan selling 65,536 addresses at $13 each for $851,896 and contracting to sell 327,680 addresses at $19 each for $6.22 million - and ARIN's Stephen Ryan notes that once addresses are transferred to other regional registries, there is basically no way to get them back.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Fraud & Scams
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