fbi

One of the more widespread malware efforts over the past few years was the DNSChanger scam, which installed a Trojan horse that would change the DNS server settings on affected computers to divert traffic to rogue servers.

The DNS system is essentially the Internet's phone book that allows your computer to resolve a URL to the IP address of the server that hosts its contents. By changing a computer so that it uses a rogue DNS server, the DNSChanger malware was thus able to redirect valid URLs (such as those for banking institutions) to malicious Web sites in order … Read more

The U.S. official who has accused Kim DotCom of operating an online criminal empire has plenty of piracy-fighting experience.

Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, is the former general counsel and antipiracy enforcer for the Business Software Alliance, a trade group representing software producers such as Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Intuit.

MacBride has accused DotCom and six others of operating MegaUpload, a cyberlocker service that has allegedly generated more than $170 million in criminal proceeds. The government asserts that MegaUpload enabled and encouraged users to upload pirated movies and other media to one … Read more

The FBI has begun extradition proceedings in New Zealand to bring Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, to the United States to face charges of racketeering, money laundering, and Internet piracy.

DotCom and three associates are in custody and are being held without bail until Monday, when a new hearing is scheduled. Three other alleged accomplices are still at large. During a hearing yesterday, DotCom told the court he didn't object to allowing photographers in the courtroom. He said: "We have nothing to hide."

In an interview with CNET, Ira Rothken, an attorney well known in the tech … Read more

In the aftermath of Wednesday's SOPA/PIPA blackout protests, the Internet community amassed quite a bit of goodwill, flexed its muscles in a friendly, humorous, civil-disobedience kind of way, and, remarkably, even managed to change quite a few minds.

Just 24 short hours later, Anonymous legions nuked that goodwill and took cyber security into thermonuclear territory. The real question now is: were they played?

As I write this, #OpMegaUpload is in full effect. The Internet is seemingly coming down all around me. Global Internet traffic is fluctuating between 13 percent and 14 percent above normal, and, as you can … Read more

Are you surprised about the feds shutting down MegaUpload? One truly shocking nugget of information to emerge from the federal indictment is the unbelievable list of property and money subject to forfeiture from the defendants.

A conviction against Kim Schmitz (or one of the other listed MegaUpload associates) means that more than $175 million stashed away in 64 bank accounts around the world becomes U.S. government property. The other defendants in the indictment include several entities and individuals: MegaUpload Ltd., Vestor Ltd., Finn Batato, Julius Bencko, Sven Echternach, Mathias Ortmann, Andrus Nomm, and Bram Van Der Kolk.

The jaw-dropping … Read more

The FBI has busted the alleged operators of Internet locker service MegaUpload, which had become one of the most popular video destinations on the Web, according to a statement from the U.S. Justice Department and FBI.

Seven people have been named in an indictment and four suspects have been taken into custody, according to the statement today. They have been charged in Virginia with crimes related to online piracy, including racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, and conspiring to commit money laundering.

The suspects face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, the government said.

According to … Read more

The FBI and Philippine law enforcement officials arrested four people in the Philippines this week who were allegedly paid by terrorists to hack into AT&T's system, but the company said its system was not breached.

The four, who were arrested Wednesday in Manila, were paid by the same Saudi Arabian-based terrorist group identified by the FBI as funding the 2008 attack on Mumbai, the Philippines' Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) said in a statement. The coordinated attacks in India's largest city claimed 164 lives and wounded at least 308.

"The hacking activity resulted in … Read more

After a Santa Clara University undergraduate tweeted that he had unexpectedly been questioned by FBI agents, the school itself acknowledged that it has asked the feds to investigate how an intruder electronically altered a few dozen grades.

Mark Loiseau, 25, a senior electrical engineering student, received an unpleasant surprise this morning: three FBI agents showed up at his off-campus apartment wanting to have a friendly chat with him.

FBI agent Jeffrey Miller and his colleagues had complete dossiers on him and his friends, Loiseau told CNET this afternoon. "They had all my grades. They had pictures of me." … Read more

The U.S. Department of Justice said today that it has uncovered a large, sophisticated Internet scam ring that netted $14 million by infecting millions of computers with malware designed to redirect their Web searches to sites that generated ad revenue.

Six people have been arrested in Estonia and a Russian is being sought on charges of wire fraud and computer intrusion, the FBI said. They are accused of infecting about 4 million computers in more than 100 countries--500,000 in the U.S. alone, including NASA--with malware called DNSChanger. The malware altered the Domain Name Server settings on the … Read more