Cybersecurity Executive Arrested Over Alleged ShinyHunters Links

[Dave1]

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74942095/parties/united-states-v-dobrovsky/

A supposedly cybersecurity expert, Edward Dubrovsky has been arrested in Pennsylvania. He is a Canadian, and has been charge with  extortion activity that multiple reports have linked to the FBI's ongoing crackdown on the ShinyHunters hacking group.

How ironic is it, you are supposedly a expert on cybersecurity, and yet you are allege to be a ShinyHunters co-conspirator.

ShinyHunters is known to be a cybercrime group that active since 2019 and has been in data theft of corporate group and demand money, in short extortion from their victims.

More documents here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.paed.663480/gov.uscourts.paed.663480.3.0.pdf

[Z-tight]

I have read a little about this ShinyHunters hacker group, and i understand that they are popular for data exfiltration and then extortion through ransom. However, i am really curious, do any of their victims end up paying the ransom, because it looks like a stupid thing to do. I say that because how can you be certain that the group wouldn't take your money and still go ahead to sell the data in the dark web.

How ironic is it, you are supposedly a expert on cybersecurity, and yet you are allege to be a ShinyHunters co-conspirator.

Putting his talents to good bad use.

[Dave1]

I have read a little about this ShinyHunters hacker group, and i understand that they are popular for data exfiltration and then extortion through ransom. However, i am really curious, do any of their victims end up paying the ransom, because it looks like a stupid thing to do. I say that because how can you be certain that the group wouldn't take your money and still go ahead to sell the data in the dark web.

How ironic is it, you are supposedly a expert on cybersecurity, and yet you are allege to be a ShinyHunters co-conspirator.

Putting his talents to good bad use.

We could deduce that their victims are paying,

1. They have been active since 2019, so they have been in the extortion business for many years. This kind of criminal group are organized, so with that they needed funds. If their victims are not paying, then their infrastructure might have collapsed already.

2. This Cybersecurity. He has cooperate with them, meaning they could be getting in a 6 or 7 figures as payment for his "services". Because I don't think that he is more willing to do business with a cyber criminal if you are not being well compensated by them.

[Z-tight]

We could deduce that their victims are paying,

1. They have been active since 2019, so they have been in the extortion business for many years. This kind of criminal group are organized, so with that they needed funds. If their victims are not paying, then their infrastructure might have collapsed already.

I thought about that too, but i just find it stupid to give in to blackmail, because you never know what the extortionist is going to do. Would you trust the words of a criminal who hacked into your system in the first place, i am not sure i will.

This remind me of the attack on Revolut last month. Attackers pretended to be a LE agency and requested personal information of hundreds of Revolut's high-net-worth customers and the company handed over these documents to the attacker, believing they were legitimate request from LE. What followed was extortion to the tune of $3m, however, there are no reports that Revolut paid this ransom.

[Dave1]

We could deduce that their victims are paying,

1. They have been active since 2019, so they have been in the extortion business for many years. This kind of criminal group are organized, so with that they needed funds. If their victims are not paying, then their infrastructure might have collapsed already.

I thought about that too, but i just find it stupid to give in to blackmail, because you never know what the extortionist is going to do. Would you trust the words of a criminal who hacked into your system in the first place, i am not sure i will.

This remind me of the attack on Revolut last month. Attackers pretended to be a LE agency and requested personal information of hundreds of Revolut's high-net-worth customers and the company handed over these documents to the attacker, believing they were legitimate request from LE. What followed was extortion to the tune of $3m, however, there are no reports that Revolut paid this ransom.

True, there are no reports surfacing on companies that have paid to the cyber criminals. But maybe again, I was thinking that they could have shown the data to the victims themselves and should think of not paying, then their data will go and leaked to the dark market.

And then "A lack of response raises questions." Specially in the recent Revolut case, so maybe they did, or maybe they didn't, but we all know that when there are silence, it's usually the admittance of guilt, just saying.

[noorman0]

I thought about that too, but i just find it stupid to give in to blackmail,

But consider this: paying the ransom isn't about sanitizing the stolen data, but rather buying time to patch the vulnerability that could pose the next threat as quickly as possible. I believe the "data" in question here encompasses a broader scope than just personal information; if it involves corporate data or even backend information, it makes sense for them to pay up first.

[Z-tight]

But consider this: paying the ransom isn't about sanitizing the stolen data, but rather buying time to patch the vulnerability that could pose the next threat as quickly as possible. I believe the "data" in question here encompasses a broader scope than just personal information; if it involves corporate data or even backend information, it makes sense for them to pay up first.

That is not the case, the bad actors request this ransom in exchange for not exposing customers personal information or whatever data they have exfiltrated from their system. As soon as any service falls victim to a data breach, they immediately patch what is broken, they do not need to 'buy' time for that, the problem is the information that's already in the hands of the attackers.

Look up the Revolut data breach, the bad actors were clear, it's either Revolut pays them or they start publishing the data they have in their possession.