Cyber Crime and Automation: Bots, Bots, and More Bots
September 23, 2022
With tools now available at the cybercrime boutique Genesis Market, online theft, fraud, and extortion have become user-friendly. It is no wonder the problem is growing faster than ever. Insider spoke with someone who knows a thing or two about the topic and reports, “A Former Cybercriminal Who Once Worked with—and Betrayed—the Secret Service Says the Easy Access to Bots Is One of the Biggest Threats on the Internet Right Now.” Now rehabilitated, ex-hacker Brett Shannon Johnson now works at a fraud prevention company. Writer Samantha Delouya tells us:
“[Johnson] told Insider he worries that shady corners of the web, like bot marketplace The Genesis Market, have made it easier for inexperienced criminals to commit complicated financial crimes. ‘You’ve got sophisticated tools that 98% of cybercriminals simply don’t use, and what scares me right now is we’re seeing that change [to more use],’ Johnson said. Johnson says these bot marketplaces can deliver everything a low-level hacker would need to commit complicated financial crimes. ‘When you visit a Genesis Market, you can search for the target that you’re wanting to get. Chase, Bank of America, Google, Walmart …. you can search for the target. It will deliver the bots that are accessing credentials for that target… So I buy the bot, and the bot delivers everything that I need,’ Johnson added.”
Delouya notes cryptocurrencies have been an especially juicy target recently. With these tools at the ready, Johnson suspects, the challenging economy will motivate many otherwise law-abiding folks to try their hand at financial crimes. For the rest of us, let this be a reminder to stay on top of security best-practices. Have you changed your important passwords lately?
Cynthia Murrell, September 23, 2022
The Darknet: a Dangerous Place
October 6, 2021
Criminal activity on the Darknet is growing and evolving. One person who has taken it on themselves to study the shadow realm shares some of their experiences and observations with reporter Vilius Petkauskas in, “Darknet Researcher: They Said They’ll Come and Kill Me—Interview” at CyberNews. The anonymous interviewee, who works with research firm DarkOwl, describes a threat to their life, one serious enough to prompt them to physically move their family to a new home. They state:
“There was one specific criminal actor I was going after, trying to figure out where they were operating, who they were involved with, what groups they were affiliated with. I became a target. They turned on me and said, we will find whoever wrote this and come kill them. We will destroy them.”
Yes, poking around the Darknet can be dangerous business. What sorts of insights has our brave explorer found? Recently, there has been a substantial uptick in ransomware, and for good reason. The researcher explains:
“Look at ransomware as a service (RaaS). First and second-generation ransomware lockers were developed by incredibly smart malware developers, cryptologists, and encryption specialists. Those who designed and employed such software were some of the most sophisticated malware developers or ‘elite’ hackers around if you want to label them that. But with the RaaS affiliate model, they’re giving others the chance to ‘rent’ ransomware for as little as a few hundred bucks a year, depending on which strain they’re using. Anyone interested in getting into the business of ransomware can enter the market without necessarily having any prior or expert knowledge of how to conduct an enterprise-level attack against a network. Some of the gangs, like Lockbit 2.0 are nearly entirely automated, and their affiliates don’t need to have the slightest clue what they’re doing. You just push, plug, and play. Identify the victim, drop it onto the network, and the rest is taken care of.”
How convenient. Getting into the target’s network, though, is another matter. For that criminals turn to
initial access brokers (IABs), also located on the Darknet, who help breach networks through vulnerabilities, leaked credentials, and other weaknesses. See the write-up for more of the researchers hard-won observations. They close with this warning—there is more going on here than opportunists looking to make a buck. Espionage and cyber terrorism are also likely involved, they say. We cannot say we are surprised.
Cynthia Murrell, October 6, 2021
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