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Justice Department Indicts Two Iranians Over SamSam Ransomware Attacks (techcrunch.com)
Two Iranian officials have been indicted by U.S. federal prosecutors for creating and deploying the notorious SamSam ransomware, which exploits a deserialization vulnerability in Java-based servers. TechCrunch reports: Faramarz Shahi Savandi, 34, and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri, 27, were indicted by a federal grand jury in New Jersey on Monday on several counts of computer hacking and fraud charges. The case was unsealed Wednesday, shortly before a press conference announcing the charges by U.S. deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. In total, SamSam has generated some $6 million in proceeds to date -- or 1,430 bitcoin at today's value. In a separate announcement, the Treasury said it had imposed sanctions against two bitcoin addresses associated with the ransomware. The department said the two addresses processed more than 7,000 transactions used to collect ransom demands from victims. "The Iranian defendants allegedly used hacking and malware to cause more than $30 million in losses to more than 200 victims," said Rosenstein. "According to the indictment, the hackers infiltrated computer systems in ten states and Canada and then demanded payment. The criminal activity harmed state agencies, city governments, hospitals, and countless innocent victims."
One of the victims was the City of Atlanta, which was knocked offline earlier this year and spent a projected $2.6 million in recovery. "It was later discovered that the city's computers had long been vulnerable to leaked exploits developed by the National Security Agency -- later stolen and leaked online for anyone to use," reports TechCrunch.
One of the victims was the City of Atlanta, which was knocked offline earlier this year and spent a projected $2.6 million in recovery. "It was later discovered that the city's computers had long been vulnerable to leaked exploits developed by the National Security Agency -- later stolen and leaked online for anyone to use," reports TechCrunch.
n/t
I actually went to college with Mehdi Mansouri. I can't say I remember much about him, he wasn't a friend of mine and we didn't hang out so he was rather forgettable (no offense!). Just another face in the crowd, really. Anyhow, one time I was at brazilian spa having my crotch, taint, and ass defoliated. I looked over the the table next to me and it was Mehdi. I believe in the bro code so we just nodded and that was the end of it.
Weird headline, WTF? I think name and shame is idiotic bait and capture is the only thing that makes any sense in countries without extradition. Of course the priority should be to establish good enough ties for extradition from countries but of course YOU CANT DO THAT IF YOU ARE COMMITTING CRIMES IN THE COUNTRY CAN YOU.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The tax payer was saved the cost resulting from Israel being nuked
ðY'
Agreed. I hope Stuxnet v2 (and successors) is already in the US arsenal.
By who, the United States? The only country to use nuclear weapons. For it to be another country in the region, like oh, say Iran, first they would need a nuclear weapons program. Which even the CIA and Mossad have admitted Iran doesn't have.
...from the United States. Cuz is not like the United States wouldn't be at war with somebody by the end of the week if someone sabotaged Los Alamos.
We will bomb them mercilessly into eternity
Iran HAS a nuclear weapons program. That doesn't mean they could hit anybody with them now. But they do have the PROGRAM, so to dither about that is Trump-in-Korea level dumb. Israel has hundreds of illegal weapons.
There's no pretending otherwise anymore
-1
Authoritarians need to fuck off and stop trying to control the world. Smarten up and secure your computer and stop blaming others for your own failures.
And really... you are going to punish the victims of blackmail? Sanctioning two Bitcoin addresses doesn't stop people and using it against those who probably don't even know about the sanctions is just morally fucked up.
We need to end government mot enlarge it. If I had an option for hiring my own security force I can assure you I wouldn't be hiring our current law enforcement.
I can only hope in the coming years the Free State Project is as successful as it has been this year. Twice as many people moved this year as the prior.
I don't think you quite understand the concept.
The United States has an advantage in prosecuting foreign individuals that other countries don't have. Foreigners actually want to park their wealth in US assets, visit the United States or live here so banning them by way of convicting them of a crime in US Federal Court is actually a fairly powerful deterrent. Could Iran convict Americans in Iranian Court? Sure, but who actually wants to go to Iran? Certainly not many Americans, so it's not effective to "ban" Americans from visiting or living in Iran or parking their wealth in a worthless foreign currency, like the Iranian Riyal. The mere suggestion that many Americans would want to do any of these things is laughable. In fact, it would be a punishment to be forced to visit or live in Iran or to invest in their worthless currency.
If the US or Israel were nuked, Tehran and Mecca would suffer retaliatory nuclear strikes - for starters.
M.A.D. - Mecca Assured Destruction - in retaliation.
If Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program, what were those hundreds of centrifuges making? Cotton Candy?
Marg Bar Iran.
Israel doesn't pretend and Iran knows that. Israel is the only country that ignores US or Russia when it comes to defending their country. The last time Israel acceded to US demands was in 1973. Israel was marching towards Damascus and Cairo looking for blood after beating the snot out of the Arab forces after repelling the surprise invasion. Israel settled for claiming the Sinai peninsula and the Golan heights. Egypt got the Sinai back after signing a treaty with Israel but they are not giving back the Golan Heights. That would be the equivalent to the US giving California back to the Mexicans. When it comes to Israel the Arab battle cry has always been "Thank you sir may I have another!"
And the Israelis are giving Russia a break by not destroying their advanced anti-air systems in place in Syria. The Israelis could destroy the Russian air defense batteries in Syria but if they did Russia would have a harder time selling their defense systems.
Any indictment coming soon for those in a taxpayer-funded federal agency who did not report security holes in critical US infrastructure, but instead developed tools to exploit them, which were later "lost" and ended up in the hands of anyone with an Internet connection? These guys probably reside on US territory and can actually be arrested.
These Iranians are two small-time thugs. What about the Chinese government—do you think they did not duly download the tools and put them to good use?
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Until Islam undergoes a true reformation to bring it out of 6th-century barbarism, Islam needs to be strongly and unequivocally outlawed in the entire West. Islam is entirely incompatible with the modern secular world. Every Mosque in the West needs to be bulldozed.
Muslims are followers of a violent pedophile 6th-century warlord who created Islam to enslave the world under an intolerant authoritarian theocracy. There will never be a free and open society anywhere that Islam dominates, nor will there be peace for any people who do not accept Islam until Islam and it's followers are shown that the rest of the world will not tolerate their barbarity and will not hesitate to kill them when they instigate violence. They follow a warlord, violence and death is all they respect. Teach them respect in the only manner they understand if you want peace.
You'd think people would get the message since the very first foreign military conflict (besides Britain) America was forced into was against Muslim pirates along the Barbary Coast and they've remained a threat for 200-plus years. Don't (quite literally) lose your head over your refusal to take off the rose-tinted glasses.
Nuclear power, grasshopper. Same reason the United States started giving the Shah nuclear power technology before his regime was overthrown - Iran is an oil producing country, and nuclear power allows them to export more oil. Any more remedial questions?
As much as Obama was born in Kenya, sure. As long as you're pretending.
As long as you're ignoring the fact that Israel started the '69 war, and had the '73 war coming to them as they were illegally squatting on land acquired in a war they started, sure.
LOL! Iran has hundreds of centrifuges deep underground. If they were "peaceful", they would be above ground.
You ain't foolin' anyone comrade. And Iran spends billions of dollars buying Western tech so if they wanted peaceful nuclear tech they could easily have it. But Iran is making nukes for bombs for their barbaric, sinister Islamic Revolution and their Mad Mahdi.
Marg Bar Iran and its Revolutionary Gestapo.
In London, the most popular name for new born baby boys is.... Muhammad and its variations.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/21/top-baby-names-england-wales-revealed-name-fashion/
Coming soon to a rapidly changing neighborhood near you too?
1969? Your ignorance is telling.
BTW, If Islam is "the Religion of Peace", why is it busy killing fellow Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Pakistan ...?
Why is it killing Infidels all over the World?
So I suppose all Americans who do go to Iran must be spies or something?
Let's just remember this the next time some politician screams that encryption keys should somehow be made available to the FBI: If the NSA cannot protect malware that it developed (for nefarious but presumably legal in the USA purposes) from being stolen and used for nefarious purposes that are illegal everywhere, then what chance does the FBI have to protect keys that would allow them to crack my phone from being stolen by some hacker?
As long as you're ignoring the fact that Israel's neighbours intentionally refused to integrate any Palestinians to have some population that will continue to try to attack Israel, and ignoring the fact that Israel's neighbours wanted to exterminate everyone in Israel, and ignoring the fact that this land was given to them by European countries.
Firstly the Six Day War occured in 1967 not 1969. At this point it is hard to take anything you say seriously.
Note that the precursor to the war was Egypt closing the Straits of Tiran something that Israel had said repeatedly since 1957 would constitute an act of war.
Sure Israel made the first military strike, but only after Egypt (in response to false reports from the Soviet Union that Israel was massing on the Syrian border) massed troops in the Sinai on Israel's border, expelled the UNEF force from Gaza and Sinai, took over UNEF the positions at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran, then closed the Straits to Israeli shipping. Finally Jordon invited the Iraqi army to deploy troops in Jordon.
Oh and occupy land after a war is not illegal. Start a war and loose you get occupied and it is legal.
Well, seeing that you need a nuclear power program for a modern nuclear weapons program....
I'm sorry, but at this point, if it's a nuclear program and not working on thorium reactors, it's to seed a weapons program. Weapons aren't hard to make once you have the material, but the materials are quite difficult as they don't exist in nature. It's fairly widely excepted that the reason the US went whole hog on uranium nuclear power was because it fed the weapons program nicely, and they skipped thorium reactors because they weren't good for the weapons program. And if Iran is trying to mimic the US nuclear power program, isn't it safe to assume that maybe they're doing it for the same reason the US did it?
I don't know, they could be filmmakers shooting a sci-fi flick. About these pirates and rogue droids stranded on a desert planet...
So where's the bedwetting over Japan's nuclear power program? All Iran wants is the same nuclear power generation enjoyed by other countries that aren't threatened with total genocide for possessing.
You mean the vaporware that no one is building, including nuclear weapon possessing countries like the US, the UK, France and Russia?
Because they don't want to be bombed by the United Sates or the Israelis, dipshit. Who, again, have both admitted that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. Speaking of Iran, they were in compliance with the NPT before the "Iran deal" (as opposed to the US which has always ignored the disarmament provisions) and remained in compliance with the "Iran deal" after the US pulled out. Dipshit.
As is your harping over a typo.
Your dumbfuck whattabouttery aside, because of a century of western imperialism.
Why are you ignoring the fact that all the "jihadist violence" you're whining about is 1) directly sponsored by western imperialism 2) backlash to western imperialism?
Congratulations on catching a typo. Here's your gold star.
Any excuse to avoid dealing with the fact that all the wars were started by Zionists, save the '73 Yom Kippur war, which they had coming as they were illegally squatting on land they stole during the 1967 war, which the Zionists started.
Any excuse to ignore the fact that Israel was obviously massing their own forces, since they started the war. You think you're fooling anyone but your fellow apartheid supporters here?'
Completely illegal after WWII. But by the logic of your bullshit, all your Arab neighbors have to do is win a war, and they'll be legally justified in forcing every Israeli out of their houses. Funny how Hasbara blows up in the face in those who spread it when the very same reasoning is used with different variables.
FTFY. Good luck being an international investor without being linked to the petrodollar, or a banking system that the USG can ban you from/seize your assets on a whim.
The original poster specified 1969. That ain't a typo. It's IGNORANCE of history.
"Western Imperialism" is the cause of Arabs/Muslims killing each other over 1,400 years? LOL!
You dumbsocialistmotherfucker, Socialist Imperialism is the cause of Arabs/Muslims killing each other TODAY and killing NON-Muslims TODAY.
Socialism thrives on death and destruction because Socialism can't create ANYTHING. Look at Venezuela, Russia, Cuba.
You Lie like an fascist ayatoola.
Hundreds of enrichment centrifuges located DEEP underground are part of Fascist Irans nuclear weapons program.
If they were part of a Peaceful nuclear program, they would be ABOVE ground like a nuclear Power plant.
And Fascist Iran holds weekly Nuremberg rallies calling for death to America and Israel.
You ain't fooling anyone you dumb sack of Sand Nazi shit. Now ESAD like a good Socialist.
And Marg Bar (Death to) Iran!
Los Alamos is a highly secured facility, does that mean the US plans to nuke other countries? The dipshit force is strong with you, AC.
UberDUH, Yes, the US did use nuclear weapons.
Lets see how educated a dumb socialist like you is.
When did the US use nuclear weapons???
What world-wide event was happening at that time???
What happened after the bombs were used?
As the original poster, I'm perfectly aware of the fact that Israel started the 1967 war by first claiming that they were defending themselves from an Arab attack, and when that turned out to be total BS, switched to claiming it was about the blockade of the Straits of Tiran. Which, according to Zionist reasoning, means that any and all Palestinian attacks in response to the blockade of Gaza are completely justified.
This is why you should stop huffing the taint of capitalism - as Venezuela's economy is still 4/5 capitalist. Which means that if you want to blame Venezuela's issues on anything, 4/5 of that blame needs to fall on capitalist heads.
You say that like your blather is supposed to mean something. It doesn't mean anything.