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FBI seized entire database of TorMail service; using it to catch Criminals

FBI seized entire database of TorMail service; using it to catch Criminals

Jan 27, 2014
Using Tormail Email service for being Anonymous online while conversations and mail exchange?? There is a very disappointing news for all   current and past users, US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has a complete copy of Tormail server and they are using it to catch the Criminals & Hackers. According to court documents that recently surfaced, the FBI  have cloned the entire email database while investigating Freedom Hosting. In August 2013, when the FBI seized the Tor network's top web host, Freedom Hosting , that gave the feds access to every record of every anonymous site hosted by Freedom Hosting , including TorMail , a service that allowed to send and receive email anonymously . New evidence uncovered by Wired suggests those archives are now being used in completely unrelated investigations, but possibly now the FBI is mining the information from that database to track cyber criminals. Remember the shutdown of the Silk Road black market?? A
U.S. Judge ordered the largest Ever Forfeiture of 29,655 Bitcoins seized from Silk Road

U.S. Judge ordered the largest Ever Forfeiture of 29,655 Bitcoins seized from Silk Road

Jan 20, 2014
In last October, the Feds told they would probably just  liquidate the bitcoins  seized from the online black market Silk Road, once they were legally free to do so. Finally the United States District Judge  J. Paul Oetken   signed off  on the forfeiture order for the Bitcoins, clearing the government to sell the assets. Last September, the FBI had seized  29,655 Bitcoins from the online black market Silk Road after its alleged 29-year-old mastermind, Ross William Ulbricht , aka ' Dread Pirate Roberts ' was arrested and charged with possessing controlled substances and committing or conspiring to commit computer hacking offenses, among other charges. This new ruling represents the largest-ever forfeiture of Bitcoins . The assets include the Silk Road hidden website and 29,655 Bitcoins , worth more than $28 Million according to current exchange rates. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: "With today's forfeiture of $28 million worth of Bitcoins fr
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
Silk Road alternative 'Sheep Marketplace' shut down after $40 Million in Bitcoin Theft

Silk Road alternative 'Sheep Marketplace' shut down after $40 Million in Bitcoin Theft

Dec 03, 2013
Sheep Marketplace , one of the leading anonymous websites, after Silk Road 's closure by U.S. Prosecutors, allegedly selling drugs, has gone offline claiming it was robbed of $6 million worth of Bitcoins . Like Silk Road , Sheep Marketplace was a Deep Web site accessible via the Tor network and quickly grew into a replacement of other popular underground Bazaars. Weeks ago, the Administrator of the Sheep Marketplace announced that withdrawals  from online Wallet would be closed for a few hours as a new feature was being implemented, however deposits were still allowed. Recently, The market's administration left a short message for users, which reads: We are sorry to say, but we were robbed on Saturday 11/21/2013 by vendor EBOOK101. This vendor found a bug in the system and stole 5400 BTC – your money, our provisions, all was stolen. We were trying to resolve this problem, but we were not successful. We are sorry for your problems and inconvenience, all of the current BTC will be di
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Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
The Silk Road Founder financially linked to Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto

The Silk Road Founder financially linked to Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto

Nov 25, 2013
Two most important moments in the history of Bitcoin are : Its creation by Satoshi Nakamoto , and the burst of The Silk Road's Founder  Ross William Ulbricht . The silk Road's black market was a Bitcoin economy. According to a report published by two Israeli computer scientists,  Ross William Ulbricht , aka Dread Pirate Roberts , may be financially linked to Satoshi Nakamoto. Even if the Bitcoin buyers and sellers remained anonymous, but the transactions themselves are public, So the scientists were able to trace the interactions. The Scientists, Ron and Shamir were exploring the connection between the operator of Silk Road who was recently arrested by the FBI for running the Internet blackmarket Silk Road and the entity that invented the bitcoin. The bitcoin network was established in 2008 and it has been popularly believed that the first accounts in the early days of the bitcoin were of Satoshi Nakamoto , accumulated some 77,600 BTC as a result of 'mining' Bitcoins
FBI Seized 144,000 Bitcoins worth $28.5 Million From Silk Road Bust

FBI Seized 144,000 Bitcoins worth $28.5 Million From Silk Road Bust

Oct 27, 2013
The world's favorite crypto-currency has made rounds in the headlines this week. The FBI had managed to seize 144,000 Bitcoins  worth some $28.5 million at current exchange rates from Silk Road's founder, that's the largest ever seizure of the cryptocurrency . Bitcoin is an open-source, decentralised, digital currency, whose production is designed to simulate the mining of a commodity, like gold. These Bitcoins belonged to Ross Ulbricht , the 29-year-old who allegedly created and managed the Silk Road , the popular anonymous drug-selling site. In March, 7000 of 10,000 items on Silk Road were drugs. Earlier this month Ulbricht was arrested and the website was taken offline by the Department of Justice and charged with engaging in a drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracy as well as computer hacking and attempted murder-for-hire. The Bitcoin address now known as DPR Seized Coins finished receiving the mass of cryptocurrency and Authorities are also
Silk Road : 8 more suspected users arrested in US, UK, Sweden

Silk Road : 8 more suspected users arrested in US, UK, Sweden

Oct 10, 2013
Authorities in Britain, Sweden, and the United States have arrested eight more people in the wake of the shutdown of the Silk Road , online illegal drug marketplace which helped dealers sell drugs under the cloak of anonymity. Millions of Dollars worth of Bitcoins (Electronic currency) had been seized and that other online drug dealer should expect a knock on their door by the National Crime Agency. The other suspects were arrested within hours after the FBI arrested 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht , the suspected creator of Silk Road also known as " Dread Pirate Roberts ". Although, he denies charges that he operated the website. Ulbricht is separately accused in a federal indictment in U.S. District Court in Baltimore with a similar count of narcotics trafficking conspiracy and additional charges of soliciting an $80,000 murder-for-hire of a former Silk Road employee. A federal judge on Wednesday ordered that Ulbricht charged with operating a notorious online drug marketplac
Seized $3.5 Million worth Bitcoins from Silk Road will be deposited in the U.S. Treasury

Seized $3.5 Million worth Bitcoins from Silk Road will be deposited in the U.S. Treasury

Oct 05, 2013
Ross Ulbricht , the recently arrested mastermind behind Silk Road , appeared in court yesterday where his lawyer begged for more time before the detention hearing. As the Protective Order states, The United States is further authorized to seize any and all Bitcoins contained in wallet files residing on silk road servers and can transfer the full account balance in each silk road wallet to a public Bitcoin address controlled by the United States. Right now the FBI must be feeling pretty good too, because a federally controlled Bitcoin account , renamed as " Silkroad Seized Coins " now contains over $3.5 million worth of the digital currency , seized from Silk Road over 26,000 Bitcoins. As of this writing, the FBI 's Bitcoin address has received 122 transactions, nearly 30 of which apparently come from pranksters and now the account holds 27,365.89919925 BTC. Forbes, Kashmir Hill asked FBI spokesperson that what the plan is for those seized Bitcoins. " W
Underground Drugs Market website 'Silk Road' Founder Arrested by FBI

Underground Drugs Market website 'Silk Road' Founder Arrested by FBI

Oct 02, 2013
The FBI had seized a website called ' Silk Road ', that was considered one of the most popular Underground places on the Internet for buying drugs and other illicit goods and services. They arrested the site's alleged founder,  Ross William Ulbricht, known as " Dread Pirate Roberts ," in San Francisco, who reportedly had  26,000 Bitcoins worth $3.6 million. The FBI used information from Comcast in the investigation and collaborated with US Customs and Border Patrol, the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security. Ross Ulbricht Ross William Ulbricht, a 29-year-old graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Materials Science and Engineering  charged with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to the filing. ' Silk Road '  website, which had operated since early 2011, also offered tut
What is the Deep Web? A first trip into the abyss

What is the Deep Web? A first trip into the abyss

May 31, 2012
The Deep Web (or Invisible web) is the set of information resources on the World Wide Web not reported by normal search engines. According several researches the principal search engines index only a small portion of the overall web content, the remaining part is unknown to the majority of web users. What do you think if you were told that under our feet, there is a world larger than ours and much more crowded? We will literally be shocked, and this is the reaction of those individual who can understand the existence of the Deep Web , a network of interconnected systems, are not indexed, having a size hundreds of times higher than the current web, around 500 times. Very exhaustive is the definition provided by the founder of BrightPlanet, Mike Bergman, that compared searching on the Internet today to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean: a great deal may be caught in the net, but there is a wealth of information that is deep and therefore missed. Ordinary
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