FBI to ShinyHunters: 'We know how to find you' The FBI’s cyber chief has a message for the criminals that hacked the bureau’s jobs portal last week: "We know how to find you," so turn yourself in. In a video message following the Dutch National Police’s arrest of a 24-year-old whom the FBI described as “one of the alleged leaders of ShinyHunters,” Brett Leatherman, assistant …
I feel like ShinyHunters should probably not have poked this particular bear.
The resource and reach of the FBI means that they'll probably get you eventually if you annoy them enough.
And defacing their website would really annoy them...
I suspect there are presently quite a few ShinyHunter members now packing a bag and doing research on "How to live in a cave"
It depends I suppose if you have a "dead man's switch" loaded with enough "information ordnance" to dissuade anyone from risking its detonation and making sure you have a large enough state as a "protection"
See case of Edward Snowden, who is still alive, not only through russian protection (as it pisses off the Americans, which is reason enough for the russians to ensure he keeps living and breathing, with the sweetener of a living breathing example that the west are not the paragons of virtue they protray themselves to be), his own careful planning but also how much he has yet held back, stuff I'm guessing the Americans aren't exactly sure *what* it is, but it's likely worse for them than what has already been released
I think they mean if you mess with the GRU/SVR/GU etc then you might be defenestrated, although personally in that situation you'd have been found to have committed suicide by shooting yourself in the back of the head after beating yourself up and torturing yourself for several days beforehand in remorse at what you've done, all this whilst in "protective custody" in a "police station" somewhere in a basement in Lubyanka.
As things stand they'd mostly get a few years in clink, maybe some big fines if they have any assets. Release agent or security service employee data, and I genuinely expect they'd never come out of jail, certainly if dealt with in the US. If lucky enough to be dealt with in the UK, Netherlands or Nordics then it'll be soft justice as usual.
So I suppose the question is how lucky ShinyHunters feel. The answer is obviously that they're not that bright as they've already FAFO'd with the US security services, and genuinely think they're clever enough to stay ahead of the combined law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the Five Spies and EU.
Out of interest, does anyone here think they (themselves) would be clever enough to stay hidden from that level of investigation?
I'm sure Extorting 70 mil makes you think you're hot stuff, and yeah - you'll make it on the FBI's radar. But, Hack em, dump or sell PII... now you are on FBI's hit list. And I don't care how crappy quality control has gotten under Patel. The full nation weight of resources will be brought to bare.
Young and dumb. Young and dumb.
"We know who you are and we know where you are. We just haven't got round to getting you yet as we are a bit busy. Could you hand yourselves in to save us the trouble pretty please?" - FBI
This is definitely one from the playbook. It's just that the playbook is titled "How to make your agency look like imbeciles for beginners. 2nd Edition with more pretty pictures.".
I would expect comments like from the Whitehouse and the orange clown but the FBI? I thought they were cleverer. Clearly not.
"One of the five men arrested near RAF Fairford called 999 himself"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqn8m342rgk9o
The FBI must be hoping for a similar outcome.
For you Fritz, the [cyber] war is over
You might have missed the bit on BBC live about one of the residents saying the day before they were blocking entrances at the base and banning people from walking anywhere near it. Seems a bit convenient to be able to then evacuate the entire village for two days for petrol in a van. Were they doing something they didn't want anyone to see? Was something landing? Who knows?
There are unverified suggestions that they were involved in fuel theft rather than terrorism.
The vans were marked with the name of a legitimate fuel delivery company, but that company didn't own those vans, and the logo was very obviously different as in not even an attempt at copying it.
one assumes that was the inside agent, whose cover has now been comprehensibly blown, and the actions of local farmer and police having compromised a sting by jumping too soon, now ensures that if someone bigger was supposed to turn up and reveal their hand, they now certainly won't.
I imagine that a few people in high if shadowy places are now cursing quietly while trying to minimize other collateral, er effects...
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So they hacked the jobs portal and got PII? Serves the FBI right if they connected anything like that to their public-facing portal. But then they probably outsourced it to someone who manages all their HR stuff on connected systems.
And of course FBI know where to find them. It’s what you do when you visit a jobs portal. You leave your deets and they get back to you (or, increasingly, not). Duh.
Shiny Hunters are damaging everyone, and the FBI does nothing. Now they touch FBI, and they "know who they are".
So, there are 2 possibilities:
1- the FBI knows all about them, and does not care to do anything to save the businesses and hospitals and people from them, until they touch the FBI itself.
2- the FBI knows nothing and it's just bullshit.
"they uncovered “a large amount of information” on the man’s laptop, “including details about two murders that were to be committed abroad. There are indications that the suspect gave the order for this.”
This is a bit of a leap from hacking and ransomware extortion to ordering murders. Sounds like BS that Kash would make up to fluff up the importance of the arrest.
Also what kind of hacker doesn't have their laptop encrypted at the very least, if not rigged to self-wipe.
This all sounds made up.
Interesting that ShinyHunter see their venture as 'business'.
I wonder if they actually have business meetings and in part consider the ramifications of their attacks when selecting a target. The misery of people losing their jobs as a result of an attack on a company that can't pay (or will not pay), or If one person has died as a result of a ransomware attack, such as medical services being affected then it makes them murderers.
If the FBI or other agencies could prove this and publish the body count (Ice T reference, not bad for a Friday), would be hard for those organisations such as ShinyHunter to hide behind 'its just business' when premeditated actions kill people.
1. Forced Error
The FBI really do have clear evidence on the identity of the ShinyHunter gang and the proclamation was an attempt to try and force their targets in to making give-away mistakes - for example by provoking them in to breaking cover in a way that would make them easier to track.
2. Publicity Fluff
The Head of the FBI remains concerned for the safety of their position at the top of the organization and wanted to make a splashy announcement to serve as "evidence" that they were making progress on a strategically important case.
The interesting bit in the middle is to game out what the real members of ShinyHunters would do when they learned of the FBI's announcement. Which is to go to ground.
Now, if the FBI aim was to scare them in to going completely off-line ... well, that might work, at least for a time. But on the other hand, telling a wanted person that you are hot on their trail - when you don't already have them within a good, tight dragnet... that just seems a bit baffling to me. What did the FBI think these people would do? They doubtless know that if they're caught and extradited they will be given the usual "cop a plea or we'll throw the book at you" gameplay and that even if they do plead guilty they'll be looking at 10+ years in the poke.
So they will have absolutely gone to ground - and may already been in or making their way to a location in a country that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US.
Yes, I'm being cynical... but this is Kash Patel's FBI. A sniff test says this is another case of "Ready, Fire!, Aim..."
