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The Rise and Fall of the Bayrob Malware Gang (zdnet.com)
Three Romanians ran a complicated online fraud operation -- along with a massive malware botnet -- for nine years, reports ZDNet, netting tens of millions of US dollars, but their crime spree is now over. But now they're all facing long prison sentences.
"The three were arrested in late 2016 after the FBI and Symantec had silently stalked their malware servers for years, patiently waiting for the highly skilled group to make mistakes that would leave enough of a breadcrumb trail to follow back to their real identities."
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: The group started from simple eBay scams [involving non-existent cars and even a fake trucking company] to running one of the most widespread keylogger trojans around. They were considered one of the most advanced groups around, using PGP email and OTR encryption when most hackers were defacing sites under the Anonymous moniker, and using multiple proxy layers to protect their infrastructure. The group operated tens of fake websites, including a Yahoo subsidiary clone, conned and stole money from their own money mules, and were of the first groups to deploy Bitcoin crypto-mining malware on desktops, when Bitcoin could still be mined on PCs.
The Bayrob group was led by one of Romania's top IT students, who went to the dark side and helped create a malware operation that took nine years for US authorities and the FBI to track and eventually take down. Before turning hacker, he was the coach of Romania's national computer science team, although he was still a student, and won numerous awards in programming and CS contests.
"The three were arrested in late 2016 after the FBI and Symantec had silently stalked their malware servers for years, patiently waiting for the highly skilled group to make mistakes that would leave enough of a breadcrumb trail to follow back to their real identities."
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: The group started from simple eBay scams [involving non-existent cars and even a fake trucking company] to running one of the most widespread keylogger trojans around. They were considered one of the most advanced groups around, using PGP email and OTR encryption when most hackers were defacing sites under the Anonymous moniker, and using multiple proxy layers to protect their infrastructure. The group operated tens of fake websites, including a Yahoo subsidiary clone, conned and stole money from their own money mules, and were of the first groups to deploy Bitcoin crypto-mining malware on desktops, when Bitcoin could still be mined on PCs.
The Bayrob group was led by one of Romania's top IT students, who went to the dark side and helped create a malware operation that took nine years for US authorities and the FBI to track and eventually take down. Before turning hacker, he was the coach of Romania's national computer science team, although he was still a student, and won numerous awards in programming and CS contests.
.. is secure. More than yours.
Dey b haxxenin! Wif de HAXXXXXXX!!!!1!
That's another Useful Post from Useful Editor EditorDavid!
hackers, and other criminals:
Ensure your collegiate performance is dead average, because after this they will be keeping a file on you if you are top 10-25 percent. Better yet don't go to school at all so they won't have a public record of homework submissions they can mine to look for patterns matching up in your malware code either.
These apply to anyone who teetering on the bring. If you might EVER do a criminal act, you need to start preparing now, because otherwise by the time you do, you won't be able to get away and you will find either imprisoned or permanently conscripted by people you will have even less desire to find yourself working for.
Gone are both the days of anonymity and the wild west attributes of the internet. The gentrification has begun and soon there will be no shady corners to hide around.
I would have considered that standard procedure. At work, it is completely standard for anything confidential.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"Romanian" is politically correct European euphemism for gypsies. Yes, the same filthy gypsies that you see hanging around airports and train stations in Europe, waiting to steal your luggage, laptop, or pick your pocket. Gypsies are inbred genetic scum, inbreeding century after century to produce the perfect genetic criminal without a trace of empathy for their fellow man. The are unreformable, and adept at every form of criminal activity imaginable: prostitution, gambling, welfare fraud, home services scams, check forgery, and burglary.
1 finger removed per year of operation. Ill even be kind and let them choose which digit they get to keep.
... Romania's got talent would be an epic show
Make Greed Great Again.
Sounds like another crazy h@X0r conspiracy theory to me. The FBI is full of crazy conspiracy theories these days. Russians, Romanians, Al-Qaeda in Outer Space... whatever. Yet they ignore irrefutable scientific facts like AE911Truth Org
Okay, so don't do criminal shit for 9 years. Better cut it short at 5 years. Okay, got it.
In other words, like all crime* - be unexpected, be awesome at it, and do it well enough that you have so much money you never need to do it again.
* Doesn't include stock trading, banking, insurance - the rules are different there.
"Bayrob" in English, according to Google Translate.
So that explains the name.
That's nuthin. Congress, the Supreme Court, the White House, the CIA, FBI, NSA and FDA all refuse to investigate the flat-earth deniers. Your tax dollars at work my friend.