#cybercrime

#cybercrime

A man in his 40s was arrested in southern England over an alleged cyberattack that disrupted several European airports in recent days, including at London Heathrow, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Due to the sheer scale of the infrastructure of this single SIM farm-and the fact that it reportedly came onto the Secret Service's radar after it was exploited in "swatting" attacks that targeted US members of Congress around Christmas of 2023-the agency has warned that the operation, which has been at least partially dismantled, posed a serious threat of a disruptive attack on cellular service.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Tuesday resentenced the former administrator of BreachForums to three years in prison in connection with his role in running the cybercrime forum and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Conor Brian Fitzpatrick (aka Pompompurin), 22, of Peekskill, New York, pleaded guilty to one count of access device conspiracy, one count of access device solicitation, and one count of possession of child sexual abuse material. Fitzpatrick was initially arrested in March 2023 and pleaded guilty later that July.

Aleksanteri Kivimäki, convicted of thousands of cybercrimes linked to the Vastaamo data breach, has been released from custody by the Helsinki Court of Appeal. The decision followed two days of testimony from Kivimäki, who denied all charges. The court cited his prolonged pretrial detention as the reason for release. He has been in custody since February 2023. His trial will continue through November.

The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed "The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges." But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC's account was compromised. "The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products," Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.

"Agentic AI has been weaponized," the company said in a . "AI models are now being used to perform sophisticated cyber attacks, not just advise on how to carry them out."

The BBC's first cyber correspondent, Joe Tidy, travels the world interviewing high-profile cybercriminals and cybersecurity experts - part of a growing industry worth US$200 billion. What most intrigues him after a decade is how often hackers are solitary teenage boys, teaming up from their bedrooms, often thousands of kilometres apart, to "cause mayhem". Why? Some want to hurt people, but a "decent chunk" have no idea of the harm and chaos they cause.

Interpol's latest clampdown on cybercrime resulted in 1,209 arrests across the African continent, from ransomware crooks to business email compromise (BEC) scammers, the agency says. Operation Serengeti 2.0 took place between June and August this year, and the global policing coordinator confirmed today that it seized $97.4 million gained from cybercriminal enterprises across the continent. About $37 million was recovered in Angola, where authorities shut down 25 cryptocurrency mining centers allegedly run by 60 Chinese nationals using illegal power stations to validate blockchain transactions.

"The BADBOX 2.0 botnet compromised over 10 million uncertified devices running Android's open-source software (Android Open Source Project), which lacks Google's security protections."