According to digital forensics specialists, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is trying to charge some hackers, including the founder of NiceHash cryptocurrency platform, for a supposed conspiracy to distribute malware through Darkode, one of the main hacking forums on dark web.
Agency officials say that Darkode is a criminal
group powered by an online forum that can only be accessed through a password.
The FBI mentions that only advanced knowledge hackers can access this forum to
buy, sell or share sophisticated hacking tools or confidential information.
Florencio Carro Ruiz, Thomas McCormack and
Matjaz Skorjanc, Spain, the U.S. and Slovenia nationals respectively, have been
charged with crimes such as extortion, conspiracy to commit fraud and bank
fraud. Matjaz Skorjanc is the creator of the cryptocurrency market NiceHash,
also the alleged responsible for the creation of a malware that infected more
than one million machines to integrate them into the massive botnet
known as Mariposa, report experts in digital forensics.
Detected in 2008, Mariposa botnet was a massive
network used mainly in DDoS attacks and bank scams; before being dismantled it
registered more than 12 million unique IP addresses, making it one of the
largest known botnets.
The U.S. authorities claim that Skorjanc and
his accomplices are marketing a malware capable of propagating instantly to
other compromised devices to steal login credentials, access passwords to
mobile banking and even deployment of denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
After the U.S. federal authorities managed to
dismantle the botnet Mariposa, Skorjanc was sentenced to five years’
imprisonment, ending his sentence less than two years ago, at the end of 2017.
In case of being found guilty of these new
charges, each defendant faces a sentence of up to twenty years for conspiracy
to commit fraud, and up to 30 years in prison for bank fraud.
According to digital forensics specialists from
the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) although the FBI has
already managed to arrest Thomas McCormack, the agency’s main objective is
still to catch Skorjanc.
