Phone Hacking Group Is Trading Fake Bomb Threats For Bitcoin

An anonymous reader writes: French police arrested a suspect in connection to a group of hackers that are selling fake bomb threats for Bitcoin. The group has been terrorizing cities in France, UK, USA, and Australia for months. Police suspect they are doing this by using a anonymity XMPP service to hack into VoIP phones and make the fake bomb threats and swatting calls. The group is charging $5 worth of Bitcoin for schools and company headquarters, $10 worth of Bitcoin for courthouses and entire school districts, $20 worth of Bitcoin for sports events and major conventions, and $50 worth of Bitcoin for "major" sports events. Additionally, for an extra $5 worth of Bitcoin, the group would also frame someone else for the incident.

I think you dropped a decimal

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> for an extra $5 worth of Bitcoin

I think you dropped a decimal. If not, these criminals are dumber than they sound: stealing a pocketful of candy at the neighborhood store is $5 worth and won't land you in prison.

>> are selling fake bomb threats

And what's a "fake bomb threat"? (A "bomb threat" is one where someone calls in claiming to have planted a bomb.) Is a "fake bomb threat" where someone just pretends to make a call...?

Re:

[neminem]

I agree with your first point. $5 is laughably tiny. Bullies at elementary schools routinely steal more than $5 from other elementary schoolers.

I don't agree with your second point: a "bomb threat" is when someone calls in claiming to have planted a bomb... whether or not they did, in fact, actually plant a bomb; they may well have. A "fake bomb threat" is a bomb threat in which they explicitly didn't actually plant the bomb but claim they did. How is that not clear?

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[pr0fessor]

Actually $50 is laughable amount depending on where the threat takes place it could be a felony with jail-time. $5k worth of business in the US would likely land them 100+ felonies and if they are not concurrent... that's a long time.

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[SumDog]

And if they lived in said impoverished part of the world, how exactly would they convert their bitcoin to currency?

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[TWX]

Catalog purchases? With the advent of businesses that are willing to accept Bitcoin for purchases this could be a fairly good way to get some kinds of goods, which would free up local fiat currency for things like rent or food or bribes.

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[gl4ss]

put it on a card and take out at atm.

you think slums don't have atm's? in a not so impoverished place over here the smallest you can take out from atm is about 2 bucks worth of money and that will pay for food for a day.

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[BronsCon]

This would crack me right the hell up. "Yeah, uh... Hi, I run a business where people pay me to call in fake bomb threats. Someone paid me to call you. There may or may not be a fake bomb somewhere in your building. If there is, don't worry, it's fake. Thanks for helping me make $5 off some poor sap, have a nice day."

I don't think there's much risk in that.

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[allo]

The irony: Tell someone a bomb is fake and they will have a bomb alert anyway. People are paranoid. Okay, if something looks like an bomb ... but when you mention to some security guard, that there is no bomb in your briefcase ... it should be clear, that you just want to be left alone.

Re:I think you dropped a decimal

[PopeRatzo]

I think you dropped a decimal. If not, these criminals are dumber than they sound

They make up for it in volume.

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[TWX]

Given the large number of incidents that have transpired lately, the opportunity-cost for someone wanting to close their school for a day or harass a business or event or building with very little chance of being caught is extraordinarily low. If the end-perpetrator actually is in another country with little to no chance of being caught, or if they can script this so that third-party computers are used to actually make the threat then they can rake in money from lots of disgruntled people each wanting to m

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[dissy]

I think you dropped a decimal. If not, these criminals are dumber than they sound

I would assume "$5 worth of bitcoin" maybe should be "5 bitcoins", which is about $2000 USD at the moment.

Assuming that the dollar amount was meant to be the bitcoin amount, that would translate:

The group is charging $5 worth of Bitcoin for schools and company headquarters, $10 worth of Bitcoin for courthouses and entire school districts, $20 worth of Bitcoin for sports events and major conventions, and $50 worth of Bitcoin for "major" sports events. Additionally, for an extra $5 worth of Bitcoin, the group

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[dissy]

Yes, you can divide a bitcoin down to 8 decimal places.

$5 is roughly 0.01237 bitcoin ($4.997)

The smallest value you can represent is 0.00000001 of a bitcoin, which is currently $0.00000405 USD, or about 4 ten thousandths of a cent.

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[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Thanks for the translation!

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[dissy]

Yea sorry for the messy view of it. I meant to only have the translated line in italics, and to delete the original when I was done using it as a reference.

I guess that will learn me to not use preview

Where is the NSA when you need them?

[currently_awake]

This is a perfect chance for the NSA to prove they actually do something to protect America. People making bomb threats (Terrorists!), for money (new espresso maker), lots of good publicity, and they already have a world wide network monitoring the internet.

Re:

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

How do you sent Bitcoins if your Internet connection isn't working?

You should have used Dogecoins instead!

Shows initiative

[Bruce66423]

One has to admire such entrepreneurship. After all, that what made America great...

Indeed

[Bruce66423]

My point precisely...

Yes, but that's not very scary

[CajunArson]

Calling somebody up and saying there's a fake bomb isn't that scary. Do they charge extra to pretend it's a real bomb?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling somebody up and saying there's a fake bomb isn't that scary. Do they charge extra to pretend it's a real bomb?

If they call a school (even if they said it was a fake bomb), the school will most likely treat the situation as if there is a real bomb in play out of an abundance of caution and also to CYA. People roll their eyes whenever a school evacuates and think 'Geeze...another fake bomb threat", but sure as the world, if a REAL bomb ever goes off, then everyone is ready to barbeque the superintendent of the school and everyone lawyers up.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't....

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[GLMDesigns]

Republicans raped a woman in your building because her son got SWATTED?

Link please. Cause I think you're trolling sackl of sh!t

Finally have to take her shopping

[JustNiz]

>> $50 worth of Bitcoin for "major" sports events

At that price I can imagine there would be a ton of wives and girlfriends trying to put a stop to most football on TV.

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[GNious]

>> $50 worth of Bitcoin for "major" sports events

At that price I can imagine there would be a ton of wives and girlfriends trying to put a stop to most football on TV.

Why? French wifes and girlfriends might like seeing 22 sweaty men run around on a field.

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[daremonai]

But they'll run even faster if they think there's a bomb.

You must be young

[Bruce66423]

The pattern of IRA terrorism in the UK was that almost all bombs were preceded by warnings, complete with passwords to confirm their authenticity, with the result that the number of injuries and deaths were relatively low. Similarly until 911, hijacking always ended in a negotiated exchange or similar, and never the crashing of the plane - which is why the hijackers on that day weren't swarmed over - unless that's what happened to the one in Pennsylvania. Given that the senior counter terrorism officials ar

what... the.... fuck?

[KingRatMass]

The term is Phreaking for fuck's sake! Jesus H Jumping Christ on a rusty pogostick... Who the fuck writes the summaries around here? This is the 21st century version of beige boxing a bomb threat, with a novel method of payment for the rendered service.