‘Luminosity Link RAT’ Author Pleads Guilty
Summary: Colton Ray Grubbs, a 21-year-old from Stanford, Kentucky, pleaded guilty to authoring and selling the LuminosityLink remote access tool, which he marketed on Hackforums.net under the pseudonym "KFC Watermelon" for $40 and sold to more than 8,600 customers by mid-2017. Prosecutors said the tool let buyers view victims' files and keystrokes, disable security software, and activate webcams, and that Grubbs admitted to helping customers break into computers; the charges carry up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines.
Key Takeaway: The plea agreement states that when Grubbs learned the FBI was about to raid his apartment on July 10, 2017, he hid the phone and debit card tied to his Bitcoin account, pulled hard drives from his computer, and three days later moved over 114 bitcoin into six new addresses - the kind of obstruction conduct that can matter as much as the underlying charge.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
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