VB Migration

Tag: law enforcement

  • NoMoreRansom’s first birthday demonstrates importance of collaboration

    This week, the NoMoreRansom project celebrates its first anniversary and can look back to subtle but important successes in the fight against ransomware. The advice from security experts to ransomware victims tends to be twofold: keep backups, and don’t pay the ransom . The former is indeed very important advice, but isn’t really helpful when…

  • NoMoreRansom’s first birthday demonstrates importance of collaboration

    This week, the NoMoreRansom project celebrates its first anniversary and can look back to subtle but important successes in the fight against ransomware. The advice from security experts to ransomware victims tends to be twofold: keep backups, and don’t pay the ransom . The former is indeed very important advice, but isn’t really helpful when…

  • Paper: On the beat

    Kevin Williams looks back at UK law enforcement successes at combating cybercrime. In a recent Throwback Thursday article, we looked back at the sentencing of self-confessed virus writer Christopher Pile almost 20 years ago. Pile was the first person in the UK to be given a custodial sentence for writing and distributing computer viruses. He…

  • Throwback Thursday: Regina v Christopher Pile: The Inside Story & Off with his Head!

    This Throwback Thursday, we bring you not one but two (related) pieces from the archives as VB heads back to 1996 to look at events surrounding the issuing of the UK’s first custodial sentence for writing and distributing computer viruses. Over the last couple of years, the ‘Throwback Thursday’ trend has taken the Internet by…

  • Cat carries computer virus

    Cat collared. Japanese police have captured a cat said to be carrying a computer virus on a memory card attached to its collar. The bizarre ‘arrest’ came after various Japanese media organizations were sent anonymous emails containing a series of riddles apparently designed to lead to the memory card – which is reported to contain…

  • European Cybercrime Centre set for launch

    Central cybercrime resource for EU member states. This Friday will see the doors of the new European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) officially open in The Hague. The EC3 – which will be run by cross-national law enforcement agency Europol – aims to bring resources, expertise and information together from across the EU to a single central…

  • Government trojan found on German computers

    Four states admit the use of spyware. Controversy has arisen in Germany, after the well-known CCC hacker group reported that it had found a trojan that was used to spy on behalf of law enforcement agencies. The malware, which has since been given the names ‘R2D2’, ‘0zapftis’, and more informally, ‘Bundestrojaner’ (‘Federal trojan’), shares many…

  • International co-operation leads to scareware arrests

    ChronoPay co-founder arrested for DDoS attacks on rivals. Last week, Russian authorities arrested Pavel Vrublevsky, co-founder of ChronoPay , Russia’s largest processor of online payments, for performing a DDoS attack on the company’s rivals. Based on leaked emails, security researchers believe Vrublevsky and his company are also behind prominent rogue online pharmacy programs as well…

  • Botnet rented for online extortion

    Man who threatened World Cup bookmakers with DDoS attack convicted. A German man who hired a botnet and used it to threaten bookmakers with DDoS attacks during the 2010 FIFA World Cup has been convicted of six counts of computer sabotage by a court in Düsseldorf. The man hired a Russian botnet for US$65 a…

  • Department of Justice shuts down Coreflood botnet

    ‘Stop’ command sent from replaced command and control servers. Earlier this week the US Department of Justice (DoJ) obtained an unprecedented temporary restraining order (TRO) that effectively allowed it to send ‘stop’ commands from the command and control servers of the Coreflood botnet – thus managing to shut it down. As is the case with…