Today’s #GoodGuysPrevail Update…

A Cypriot criminal — the first Cypriot national ever extradited from Cyprus to the United States — was convicted and sentenced to federal prison recently for extorting website operators with stolen personal information.

This convicted felon was a teenager when he began his #extortion / #ransom campaign, and he paid nearly $600,000 USD in restitution to his victims (as a condition of his guilty plea). Kudos to yet another coordinated international #lawenforcement effort, involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cyprus Police, and United States Attorneys’​ Offices for the District of Arizona.

#crimeandjustice #justice #hacking #crime #ransomware #digitalforensics #investigations #cybercrime #fraud #fraudinvestigations

Today’s #GoodGuysPrevail Update…

In yet another 2021 law-enforcement victory against dark web criminals, The U.S. Department of Justice secured a conviction in one of the most significant take-downs in #DarkWeb history. The DoJ obtained a guilty plea from an Israeli citizen (currently residing in Brazil) who is the admitted co-owner and co-operator of the #DeepDotWeb website.

For the uninitiated, this site was likely the most popular destination for #darkweb market news, links, and more. The site made money via referral fees, as it essentially indexed (largely un-indexed) websites and shunted users to dark-web resources. These resources included vendors peddling malicious software, pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs, automatic weapons. If you think “Google for un-indexed criminal dark-websites”, you’ve nearly got it.

As the DoJ conviction reveals, the #DeepDotWeb site accepted #cryptocurrency and laundered funds through crypto-anonymization services and shell-corporation bank accounts.

#cybersecurity #crimeandjustice #ruleoflaw #digitalforensics #dfir #forensics #investigations