The most important news from the world of cybersecurity this week have been compiled.
The four top news of the week on cybersecurity are presented below:
- The head of the FACCT department was detained in Kazakhstan at the request of the United States and arrested in absentia in the Russian Federation.
- Cryptographer LockBit has requested $70 million from semiconductor maker TSMC.
- In Australia, a prisoner pulled off a $2 million Bitcoin scheme.
- The FBI has taken over several domains related to BreachForums.
Head of the FACCT Department Detained in Kazakhstan at the Request of the United States and Arrested in Absentee in the Russian Federation
On June 22, Kazakh authorities, at the request of the United States, detained Nikita Kislitsin, head of the Department for the Development of Solutions for Comprehensive Countermeasures to Complex Cyber Attacks at FACCT (formerly Group-IB), as reported by his colleagues.
The charges against him became known in 2020. The US Department of Justice later released a 2014 finding on the alleged involvement of a Russian in a conspiracy to sell stolen Formspring forum credentials in 2012 (before starting at Group-IB).
FACCT representatives said that the charges against Kislitsin are not related to the company itself and related to the period of his work as a journalist and cybersecurity researcher. They are sure that there were no legal grounds for detaining their colleague.
LockBit Ransomware Requests $70 Million from Semiconductor Maker TSMC
LockBit ransomware operators claimed they successfully hacked the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC, and demanded a ransom of $70 million.
According to the originally posted screenshots, the attackers gained access to a significant number of email addresses and credentials allegedly owned by TSMC for various internal systems. This information was later removed and a ransom message appeared in its place.
An investigation is currently underway with the participation of law enforcement officers. While the procedure lasted, the semiconductor manufacturer stopped working with the affected supplier.
In Australia, a Prisoner Succeeded in a $2 Million Bitcoin Scheme
Ishan Sinar Sappidine, who is serving a 12-year sentence in Australia for organizing a pyramid scheme, convinced at least six inmates to transfer more than $2 million to accounts under their control under the guise of investing in bitcoin. Among the victims of the scammer was the famous Australian rugby player Jarryd Hayne.
Due to the lack of internet access, the inmates turned to third parties outside the prison to transfer funds to the scammer. Despite assurances of a significant return on investment, the victims never received any payment.
The country’s authorities launched an investigation into this fact, and Sappidin was transferred to a prison with a stricter regime.
FBI Seizes Multiple BreachForums-Related Domains
US law enforcement gained control of online hacker forum BreachForums’ backup domain three months after its founder and administrator, Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, known as Pompompurin, was arrested.
The DNS servers of all captured domains were changed to ns1.seizedservers.com and ns2.seizedservers.com, which are often used by law enforcement in such cases.
The operation also affected one of the sites of the news resource DataBreaches.net, which was used to report on data breaches: Breaches.net. Media representatives have already petitioned the FBI to challenge the domain seizure.
By Audy Castaneda
