Police Sell Cyberattackers $1M Bitcoin Stash To Compensate Victims (zdnet.com) 31
UK police have seized Bitcoin worth more than £920,000 ($1.1 million) from a 27-year-old convicted of computer crimes -- and they're now planning to sell it to compensate his victims.
An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: Authorities said Grant West used a tool called Sentry MBR to launch brute-force attacks against 17 companies, where he gained access to user accounts, which he later hijacked and resold on the dark web to other criminals. London police said the list of victims included some high profile names such as Uber, Groupon, T Mobile, Just Eat, Asda, and Sainsburys... Authorities said West, who used the moniker of "Courvoisier," started trading stolen accounts on the dark web in March 2015, and made more than 47,000 sales before his arrest. He also sold cannabis, along with hacking tutorials. West did all of this using his girlfriend's laptop.
After his arrest, UK police said they found "fullz" (a term short for "full credentials" and used to describe email, username, and password combos) for more than 100,000 people on this laptop. They also found an SD card storing 78 million individual usernames and passwords, as well as 63,000 credit and debit card details.
The Guardian reports that West agreed to give up his Bitcoin after a judge told him that if he didn't, he'd spend an additional four years in jail.
An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: Authorities said Grant West used a tool called Sentry MBR to launch brute-force attacks against 17 companies, where he gained access to user accounts, which he later hijacked and resold on the dark web to other criminals. London police said the list of victims included some high profile names such as Uber, Groupon, T Mobile, Just Eat, Asda, and Sainsburys... Authorities said West, who used the moniker of "Courvoisier," started trading stolen accounts on the dark web in March 2015, and made more than 47,000 sales before his arrest. He also sold cannabis, along with hacking tutorials. West did all of this using his girlfriend's laptop.
After his arrest, UK police said they found "fullz" (a term short for "full credentials" and used to describe email, username, and password combos) for more than 100,000 people on this laptop. They also found an SD card storing 78 million individual usernames and passwords, as well as 63,000 credit and debit card details.
The Guardian reports that West agreed to give up his Bitcoin after a judge told him that if he didn't, he'd spend an additional four years in jail.
Idiot (Score:3)
£920,000 for spending four years in a minimum-security prison?
Where do I sign up?
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POCA (Score:3)
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Well, theoretically, he could have stored the wallet in his memory and then it could not have been seized. But even that comes with severe problems, as nothing is private on the BC Blockchain and any attempt by him to sell later would have been visible and attributable to him.
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The fact of the matter is that he would have lost access to his wallet in any case. The only question was whether he would give the wallet up to the police or not. In effect, he lost nothing by that step.
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Simple, not your keys, not your coins.
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£920,000 for spending four years in a minimum-security prison?
Where do I sign up?
My 1st thought as well.
Of course, the fact that your loot is in Bitcoin may be a consideration... even if you're reasonably likely to recover the cryptocurrency after incarceration, who knows what it'd be worth?
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£920,000 for spending four years in a minimum-security prison? Where do I sign up?
What makes you think you can keep the money after four years? What makes you think they don't just ask you politely whether they can have the money now, or whether you want to spend another four years in jail? What makes you think they won't bankrupt you if the value drops in four years (and keep the profits if it doesn't).
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You get to sign up after spending many months in prison during the trial process, those months make those four years look long indeed, very long especially when tacked onto another bunch of years. Plus is was likely not his only stash and I mean after stealing all that he was using his, 'girlfriend's computer'. I mean seriously millions in bitcoin and he did not buy his own computer, who the fuck is kidding who. Failure to prosecute the 'girl friend', was a huge mistake.
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Smart enough that they had to catch him with the computer in use.
Smart enough that he was accessing the 'net from a public access point.
Smart enough to accumulate (at least) £920k worth of negotiable assets.
Stupid enough to get caught. Maybe he's kind of just normal?
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You can have the money and the hammer, or you can walk out of here.
Remember folks (Score:1)
We are supposed to trust these big companies and let them lock us up tight! (our devices anyway) This is because they are Trustworthy(R)(TM)(Pat. Pending) and you're not! They have the dough and remember the GOLDen rule!
Now go lay flat on the floor and lick their boots 'till they shine like the sun. Does not matter if they are suede or any other non reflective material.
Oh this "a few million here, a few million there"...They are GOD, so they don't go to prison ever for these screw ups. Only
Grammar and punctuation matter, folks (Score:5, Informative)
It seems every year Slashdot editors become even more incompetent.
This is an example where just a single apostrophe makes all the difference:
"Police Sell Cyberattackers $1M Bitcoin Stash" = Police sell bitcoins to cyberattackers.
"Police Sell Cyberattacker's $1M Bitcoin Stash" = Police sell bitcoins that belonged to cyberattackers on the open market (to other people)
Can we get at least a grade-school grasp of English from the editors here, please? Especially when it comes to the fucking headline???
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Well, actually:
"Police Sell Cyberattacker's $1M Bitcoin Stash" = Police sell bitcoins that belonged to one cyberattacker on the open market (to other people)
"Police Sell Cyberattackers' $1M Bitcoin Stash" = Police sell bitcoins that belonged to multiple cyberattackers on the open market (to other people)
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Came here for this comment. Did not disappoint. +1, Technically Correct
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Even better. Although I didn't RTFA to see if it was one attacker or more than one.
Police sell crime money (Score:2)
Headline should read:
"Police sell crypto-crime money -that will likely almost immediately go on to be used in more crimes because crimes is the only thing crypto-crime money is good for- to help people affected by crimes caused with crypto-crime money"
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And that's different from pieces of paper with dead presidents (or, in UK, dead kings), how?
Re: Police sell crime money (Score:2)
Do you know how to move hundreds of thousands of real dollars without leaving any paper trail behind?
Bitcoin is the only reason why ransomware is possible. Ransomware isn't possible with real money.
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You know, Bitcoin is far more traceable than cash, right?
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"Do you know how to move hundreds of thousands of real dollars without leaving any paper trail behind?"
In the trunk of a car?
The crime of missing an apostrophe (Score:1)
First read: how would selling bitcoin to attackers help compensate victims? :-)
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Apostrophes in headlines (Score:1)