Day: October 30, 2023

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A man from Orlando was sentenced to prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy that led to the theft of approximately $1M in cryptocurrency.

Jordan Dave Persad (20), from Orlando, Florida, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy, followed by three years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Computer Fraud. 

United States District Judge Diane J. Humetewa also ordered Persad to pay $945,833 in restitution.

Persad was also ordered to pay $945,833 in restitution. Persad pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Computer Fraud.

The man was sentenced for his role in a hacking scheme that led to the theft of approximately $1M worth of cryptocurrency from dozens of victims. Persad and his co-conspirators hacked the email accounts of the victims, hijacked their cell phone numbers, and took over their online cryptocurrency accounts.

“Between March 2021 and September 2022, Persad and his co-conspirators hacked into victims’ email accounts, hijacked their cell phone numbers, and gained unauthorized access to their online cryptocurrency accounts. As a result of this scheme, often referred to as “SIM swapping,” Persad and his co-conspirators stole close to $1 million worth of cryptocurrency from dozens of victims, including approximately $30,000 from a victim in Arizona.” reads the press release published by DoJ. “Defendant and his co-conspirators then divided these stolen funds amongst themselves, with Persad keeping around $475,000. Investigators were able to recover some of these funds when they executed search warrants at Persad’s Orlando home.”

In June 2023, Joseph James O’Connor, aka PlugwalkJoe (24), the hacker who was involved in the attacks on Twitter in 2020, was sentenced to five years in prison for cybercrime offenses.

On November 2021, the US Department of Justice indicted Joseph James O’Connor for stealing $784,000 worth of cryptocurrency using SIM swap attacks.

Crooks conduct SIM swapping attacks to take control of victims’ phone numbers tricking the mobile operator employees into porting them to SIMs under the control of the fraudsters. Once hijacked a SIM, the attackers can steal money, cryptocurrencies and personal information, including contacts synced with online accounts. The criminals could hijack social media accounts and bypass 2FA services based on SMS used by online services, including financial ones.

According to the indictment, O’Connor and co-conspirators used SIM swaps to gain access to accounts of a Manhattan-based cryptocurrency company.

The group stole approximately 770.784869 Bitcoin cash, approximately 6,363.490509 Litecoin, approximately 407.396074 Ethereum, and approximately 7.456728 Bitcoin. 

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, SIM Swapping)

The post Florida man sentenced to prison for SIM Swapping conspiracy that led to theft of $1M in cryptocurrency appeared first on Security Affairs.

The FBI, New York’s counterterrorism unit, Gov. Kathy Hochul and other authorities vowed Monday to hunt down and prosecute whoever posted graphic threats citing Hamas and targeting Cornell University’s Jewish students.

“If you’re going to engage in these harmful actions, hate crimes, breaking our laws, you will be caught and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Hochul said Monday morning after traveling to the Cornell campus in Ithaca, New York, 165 miles from the state capital in Albany.

The threats were posted Saturday and Sunday on Greekrank, a review site for fraternities and sororities. While many students and parents say they’re trying not to panic, some Jewish undergraduates said they’re afraid to be in their dorms, sororities and fraternities. One group of parents is even trying to hire private security because campus police can’t guard every Jewish space on campus. 

Sarah Ruane, a spokesperson for the FBI in Albany, New York, located 165 miles from Ithaca but the nearest FBI office to Cornell, said the agency was “working closely with Cornell and our law enforcement partners at every level to determine the credibility, share information, and take appropriate investigative action.”

Rabbi Ari Weiss, who runs the campus Hillel, said there was “increased security at all Jewish spaces at Cornell” and that the state police counterterrorism unit was also monitoring the situation.

A fun parents’ weekend — then the news

News of the threats shattered the calm and fun of a late fall weekend on the bucolic campus in Western New York, a four-hour drive from New York City. Many students’ families had been up visiting Saturday and Sunday for parents’ weekend, enjoying the colorful autumn leaves, Halloween celebrations and a free bagel brunch hosted by Hillel Sunday morning. 

Then, as parents drove home Sunday evening and students geared up for the week ahead, came news of the threats. 

One post was titled, “eliminate jewish living from cornell campus,” while another threatened to “shoot up 104 west,” a reference to Cornell’s kosher dining hall. The graphic messages also echoed real atrocities carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7 in Israel. “If i see a pig male jew i will stab you and slit your throat,” read one, with another stating: “i will bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews,” and a third threatening, “If i see another pig female jew i will drag you away and rape you and throw you off a cliff. if i see another pig baby jew i will behead you in front of your parents.”

Texts from kids: ‘The most terrifying thing I’ve ever read’

Reaction from students was captured in the texts they sent to parents and friends after hearing the news. 

“That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever read,” wrote one.

 “I hope it’s not real,” wrote another. 

A third wrote in a campus group chat that they were “nervous to go to my hebrew class tomorrow.”

Lauren Wein Mank was among the parents who’d come up to campus for the weekend. She said her daughter has felt “safe and OK” at Cornell until now, but “when she read the actual posts, she was understandably extremely shaken. I just said, ‘Listen, we were just there, everything was really good. I don’t want you to put your head in the sand, but I don’t want you to live in fear. Just be aware, and be mindful.’” 

Traci Friedman, a Cornell alumna whose daughter lives in a Jewish sorority, was scrambling Monday with other parents to hire round-the-clock private security for the off-campus house.

“They’re terrified to leave the house or be in the house,” she said. “When I called Cornell police last night, they said they don’t have enough resources to post someone full-time. So we’re trying to hire our own security.” 

Cornell President Martha Pollack joined the governor in vowing to find and punish whoever made the threats, saying in one of several statements issued Monday: “The virulence and destructiveness of antisemitism is real and deeply impacting our Jewish students, faculty and staff, as well as the entire Cornell community. This cannot be what defines us at Cornell.” 

But Friedman said she was angry that Pollack “was being hailed as a hero by the media” because she felt little has been done until now about other antisemitic incidents on campus, including antisemitic graffiti and a professor, Russell Rickford, who took a leave of absence after publicly saying that he found the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel “exhilarating” and “energizing.” 

A remote location

“My daughter’s dream, her entire life, was to go to Cornell, but it’s been such an upsetting experience,” Friedman said. But she added that the parents are probably “more upset than the students. I think it’s just that the general feeling of college students is invincibility, and in general, Cornell feels sort of remote.”

With more than 15,000 undergraduates, Cornell is the largest of the Ivy League schools, and it also has the most Jewish students — 2,500, according to the campus Hillel. With reduced tuition for New York residents at Cornell’s four state colleges, Cornell also draws heavily from New York’s large Jewish population. 

The campus in Ithaca — located 220 miles from New York City in Western New York’s scenic Finger Lakes region, in a town with a non-student population of just 30,000 — also feels much more isolated than other Ivies like Columbia in Manhattan, Penn in Philadelphia, Yale in gritty New Haven, and Harvard, just across the river from Boston. 

A parent who asked that her name be withheld, citing privacy concerns, said it was “surreal” to learn about the threats after parents’ weekend. “The campus was focused on celebrating Halloween,” she said. The statue of the university’s founder, Ezra Cornell, had a pumpkin on its head, kids were walking around in costumes and celebrating back-to-back victories by the men’s and women’s hockey teams, and “parents were walking around in all their Cornell gear.” 

That lighthearted mood changed overnight. “Students are terrified, really, really scared,” said Zoe Bernstein, student president of Cornellians for Israel. “We’re at a loss for what to do and how to proceed. Nobody knows anything about these threats, how credible they are. There’s a lot of confusion and a lot of fear.”

Trying to rise above it

Sofia Rubinson, managing editor of The Cornell Daily Sun, said many of the Jewish students she spoke to said that if the purpose of the hate speech was to instill fear, they wanted to show they could rise above that and “keep to their daily routines and attend class.”

A parent with two children at Cornell, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of privacy concerns, said her children were defiant. One called the person behind the posts “a loser.” The other said, “Some troll got in there and posted some crap.” 

“They’re not concerned,” the parent said. “But I worry, how does this affect their identity as Jews?”

Molly Goldstein, president of Cornell’s Center for Jewish Living, a dormitory adjacent to the kosher cafeteria, said that after the social media posts started circulating in a group chat for Jewish students, some of the building’s residents, fearing for their safety, tried to find housing elsewhere in Ithaca so they wouldn’t have to sleep there. While it’s unknown whether one or more individuals were behind the threats, she said, “it only takes one person to terrorize an entire group of people.”

Rabbi Weiss, from the campus Hillel, said the last few weeks have “made it so hard for these students,” between anti-Israel rallies, graffiti and the incident with the professor who ended up going on leave. “And then they see these things, these posts on a Sunday afternoon, and I think it shook a lot of students to their core.” 

He added: “They are now fearful for their safety. And this is a trend around the country. This isn’t just at Cornell.” 

The definition of terrorism: Stoking anxiety

Wein Mank said that in addition to a child at Cornell, she has two younger children in Jewish day school, as well as family in Israel who are “in bomb shelters, their kids are on the front lines.” So she’s well aware of the very real threats to Jews here and elsewhere, and she doesn’t want to sensationalize what’s happening in Ithaca. 

But “it’s hard to find the signal in the noise,” she said. She posted pictures on Instagram of parents’ weekend showing Cornell in all its “autumn glory” but wonders, “Which is the illusion?” The fear that someone’s out to get you, or defiantly going about your business? 

“I don’t know,” she said. “This is the definition of terrorism. It makes you doubt your experience.” 

Forward staffers Jacob Kornbluh, Louis Keene and Odeya Rosenband contributed to this story. 

The post Cornell’s idyllic campus shaken by graphic threats against Jewish students appeared first on The Forward.

In hushed tones, friends and family have been asking me whether our war with Hamas could spin out of control. Could Israel find itself in the eye of a far more cataclysmic conflict? Could the U.S. be dragged into this morass, possibly along with other powers? “Are we on the verge of World War III?” they ask.

My response is that the dangers of escalation are real, but can be mitigated by an unequivocal American commitment to deter Iran and Hezbollah. The world watches the U.S.-Israel alliance, I explain, and regards it as a barometer of American power. A global conflict is avoidable if the United States continues to stand steadfastly alongside Israel, the cornerstone of Middle East stability.

That was the conclusion of my 2019 article The Atlantic titled, “The Coming Middle East Conflagration.” I predicted that a single spark — back then, an Israeli attack on Iranian assets in Syria — could ignite a wildfire that swiftly consumed the region. Much of the world might soon became engulfed.

Prophecy being an inexact vocation, there was much I got wrong. Though war indeed erupted, its spark came not from Syria but from Gaza — a sideshow in my 2019 scenario —and my assumption of Israel’s military readiness proved tragically inaccurate. More prescient, though, was my prognosis that Iran, emboldened by American isolationism and Israel’s political instability, would precipitate a conflict. And I still believe the U.S. and other powers could be dragged into the fray.

In fact, the U.S. is already in the fray. To augment Israel’s defense and deter Hezbollah and Iran, President Joe Biden has dispatched a veritable armada to the Eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. 

Escorted by four cruisers, six destroyers, and an undisclosed number of submarines are the U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carriers, the Ford and the Eisenhower, each bristling with as many as 90 fighter aircraft. Also on board are an array of sea-to-air and sea-to-ground missiles, and thousands of U.S. Marines. The Pentagon has issued “prepare-to-deploy” orders to units positioned outside the Middle East, and activated anti-missile batteries throughout the region. 

Not since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has the U.S. undertaken so large a military build-up. “No one should take advantage of this moment to escalate, to further attacks on Israel,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned, “or, for that matter, attacks on us and our personnel.”

The sheer magnitude of this force puts pressure on the Biden Administration to act if the intended deterrence fails. It is as though the president has drawn a very big pistol; hesitating to shoot it in the face of brazen provocations would send a dangerous signal of fragility to the world. 

Still, Israeli journalists keep asking me “Will Biden pull the trigger?” Here, too, my response is, “Yes.” 

In fact, the trigger has already been pulled. The downing by the USS Carney on Oct. 19 of three Israel-bound rockets and many drones fired by Iranian-backed forces in Yemen signified the opening shots. The U.S. is officially engaged.

But further engagement is certainly not America’s goal. On the contrary, news organizations in Israel and the U.S. have reported that the White House is pressuring Israel both to refrain from launching a preemptive strike against Hezbollah and to delay the Israel Defense Forces full-scale ground operation in Gaza. In Syria and Iraq, meanwhile, pro-Iranian militias have fired drones and rockets at U.S. military bases and called on their personnel to evacuate. 

The U.S. response so far has been measured, but Secretary Blinken has warned: “We expect there is a likelihood of escalation.”

How, then, might what is still a localized conflict between Israel and Hamas mushroom into a regional or ultimately a global war?

One possible scenario would be triggered by Israel expanding its ground invasion of Gaza. With its international legitimacy eroded, its soldiers exhausted from long days and nights of brutal fighting, and its ammunition stores strained, Israel would present an attractive target to Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

A Shiite terrorist organization operated by Iran, Hezbollah would be loath to let Sunni Hamas take all the credit for singularly battling the Zionist enemy. Hezbollah’s arsenal of 150,000 rockets — most of them far bigger, longer range, and more accurate than those fired from Gaza — has not been built for show. If Iran gives the green light, the IDF estimates that Hezbollah could unleash 4,000 rockets per day, overwhelming Israel’s missile defense systems.

The tactical danger of Hamas would quickly be surpassed by the strategic threat of Hezbollah. The United States would have to step in.

That intervention would be strictly defensive —shooting down Hezbollah rockets and drones. But U.S. bases throughout the region, along with the Navy strike force at sea, would be exposed — and possibly targeted. One major attack claiming U.S. casualties could then elicit a large-scale military response against Hezbollah as well as its Iranian masters. Washington and Tehran would find themselves in a de facto state of war.

That battle would confined to the Middle East. But Russian could then take advantage of Washington’s preoccupation with Iran and Hezbollah to mount a major counter-offensive in Ukraine. The Chinese might also seize the opportunity to launch their long-anticipated invasion of Taiwan. 

Many of the deconfliction tools available during the Cold War — the famed Hot Line between the White House and the Kremlin, for example — no longer exist. Few are the means for preventing or even decelerating an escalation of international, and potentially catastrophic, dimensions.

I am not, in fact, a prophet, and nothing in this scenario is inevitable. Many steps can be taken to contain the conflict and avert an apocalyptic outcome. As I wrote four years ago in that Atlantic article, and as I assure my family and friends today, Washington can greatly reduce the chances for escalation by making the goals of its Middle East mission crystal-clear. 

The Biden Administration must detail the measures it is willing to take should Hezbollah and Iran attempt to open a second front. The Russians and the Chinese must be put on notice that the United States will not be distracted by the current crisis.

Above all, the White House must continue to demonstrate its unconditional support for Israel as this war progresses, regardless of the difficulties that undoubtedly lie ahead. Sticking with Israel sends an incontrovertible message to the world of American resolve. That is the message that President Biden has sent and our common enemies — America’s and Israel’s — are listening.

The post How the Israel-Hamas war could spiral into a global conflagration — with the U.S. deeply engaged appeared first on The Forward.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday acknowledged the importance of making its search engine the default in keeping users loyal — a key point in a once-in-a generation U.S. antitrust fight focused on billions of dollars Google paid to be the default on laptops and smartphones.

Google, which started paying for default status on devices in 2005, monitored for compliance. At one point, the company expressed concern to Apple that its Safari browser would send particular queries, especially lucrative ones, to companies like Amazon.com.

“We were obviously doing the deal for default placement,” said Pichai.

Under cross-examination, Pichai said of Google’s tens of billions in annual payments for default status: “We definitely see value.”

The U.S. government brought the case over whether Google acted illegally to maintain its dominance of online search and parts of search advertising. If the government wins, the company may be forced to scrap some business practices that have helped it stay on top.

In testimony Monday morning, Pichai, who was called by Google, was shown instances when the company pressed Apple, wireless companies and smartphone makers to make its search engine the default on their devices in exchange for revenue-sharing agreements.

“We pay for preload exclusivity on a device-by-device basis,” Pichai said under questioning by the Justice Department.

A lawyer for the Justice Department asked Pichai about a 2007 discussion among Google executives including Pichai, before he became chief executive, about an Apple request to let users choose their search engine on a new version of its Safari browser.

A document at the time said 75% of people do not change defaults and noted: “Defaults have strong impact.”

Pichai also took a couple of swipes at rival Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer.

“The browser market at the time had kind of stagnated,” Pichai said of the period before Google launched its Chrome browser, which competes with the Microsoft product.

“They (Microsoft) were not that incented to improve the browser,” he added, calling Chrome a “pretty dramatic improvement” when it launched in 2008.

Google’s strength in search makes it a heavy hitter in the lucrative advertising market, its biggest revenue source.

Google has argued that if people are dissatisfied with default search engines, they can and do switch to another search provider. It has also argued the revenue-share agreements are legal and it has invested heavily to keep its search and advertising businesses competitive.

In cross-examination, the Justice Department pressed Pichai about allegations that Google executives marked sensitive documents as covered by attorney-client privilege when they were not and routinely deleted instant messages without determining if they should be saved as part of litigation.

“This is not an area I was focused on,” Pichai said.

Armoured Israeli forces attacked Gaza’s key northern city from two directions on Monday and targeted the main road linking it to the south of the enclave, witnesses said, widening an offensive that led to more international appeals for Gaza civilians to be protected.

Israel’s military said it had struck more than 600 militant targets over the past few days as it expanded ground operations in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian civilians are in dire need of fuel, food and clean water as the war enters its fourth week.

Only a few dozen humanitarian aid trucks have reached the besieged enclave of 2.3 million people since the Israel-Hamas war erupted three weeks ago, and civil order has broken down with people storming U.N. warehouses in search of food.

That has put four U.N. aid distribution centres and a storage facility out of action, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday.

“It’s a disaster on top of a disaster. Health needs are soaring and our ability to meet those needs is rapidly declining,” World Health Organization regional emergencies chief Rick Brennan told Reuters, reiterating international calls for a ceasefire to enable a larger humanitarian operation.

Israel renewed warnings for civilians to move from the north of Gaza to the south as it began an advance late on Friday to pursue Hamas militants it says are hiding in a labyrinth of tunnels under Gaza City.

Many Palestinians have stayed put for fear of becoming homeless like previous generations, and over alarm about Israeli aerial strikes further south.

Fadi, who lives in the Jabalia refugee camp on Gaza City’s northern outskirts and declined to give his last name, said the area was now in mortal danger from Israel’s ground offensive with tanks rumbling on its fringes. But he vowed not to flee.

“No one in the entire neighbourhood has left. We are staying,” he told Reuters by phone. “Whether tanks or planes, there will not be another displacement (of Palestinians). That is our decision even if that will mean our martyrdom (death).”

Islamist militants said they had repelled an attempted thrust by Israeli tanks into Gaza City from the east and were fighting them along the border with Israel in north Gaza.

“Our duty today is fight and fight,” the Islamic Jihad militant group, fighting alongside Gaza’s ruling Hamas, said in a statement, adding that now was not the time for a ceasefire.

The Israeli military said it had killed four prominent Hamas operatives. “IDF troops killed dozens of terrorists who barricaded themselves in buildings and tunnels, and attempted to attack the troops,” it said in an update.

Neither side commented on the other’s reports.

Medical authorities in Gaza said on Monday that 8,306 people – including 3,457 minors – had been killed in Israel’s three-week-old air and ground onslaught.

Israel launched a “total siege” of Gaza after Hamas-led militants burst over the border and rampaged through nearby Israeli towns and kibbutzes on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people and taking 229 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.

On Monday, residents said Israeli forces carried out dozens of air strikes on Gaza City’s eastern side, with some reporting the roar of tanks rolling in amid exchanges of fire.

Witnesses said Israeli tanks also reached Gaza’s main coastal north-south Salahudeen road during the day, in an apparent bid to intensify the siege in the north by cutting Gaza City off from the enclave’s southern half.

Later, residents and the Hamas-run government’s media office said the tanks had pulled back towards the fortified boundary fence around Gaza. Hamas’ armed wing said intense mortar fire had pushed them back, and fellow militants Islamic Jihad said its fighters were battling Israeli forces in the area.

Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. The Israeli military said it would not give details on the positions of its forces.

Palestinian health officials reported air strike impacts near three large hospitals in Gaza City on Monday. The U.N. humanitarian office OCHA said 117,000 civilians were sheltering alongside patients and doctors in hospitals in the north.

Israel has accused Hamas of placing command centres and weaponry near hospitals, which the group denies.

“Where should we go? It is all one death,” said Hatem Sultan, sheltering near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s biggest medical centre.

OCHA said rescuers were struggling to reach people. “As of 29 October about 1,800 people, including at least 940 children, have been reported missing and may be trapped or dead under the rubble, awaiting rescue or recovery,” it said.

OCHA also said Palestinian armed groups were meanwhile continuing to launch rockets into Israel indiscriminately, with no fatalities reported.

An Israeli soldier among the hostages seized by militants on Oct. 7 was freed in Gaza during the operation, the military said. It said the soldier had undergone medical checks and she was “doing well.” It gave no details on the circumstances of her release.

Later on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned as “cruel psychological propaganda” a video released by Hamas showing three female hostages with one accusing him of failing to protect and secure the release of all the captives.

Netanyahu said Israel’s ground campaign creates possibilities for rescuing the hostages.

“Hamas will not do it unless they are under pressure,” he told reporters. “We obviously greeted one hostage with open arms after yesterday’s successful action … but we’re committed to getting all the hostages back home. We think that this method stands a chance.”

Hamas has released four hostages and said 50 have been killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they were also fighting Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Jenin. The Palestinian health ministry said four people were killed there on Monday. Israel said an air strike killed several fighters.

The conflict has led to demonstrations worldwide in support of the Palestinians, and antisemitic and Islamophobic harassment and attacks are increasing.

Russian authorities said they had taken over an airport in the predominantly Muslim Dagestan region and arrested 60 people after hundreds of anti-Israel protesters stormed the facility in search of Jewish passengers on a plane from Israel.

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But who was Sidney Reilly and what were the forces that drove him? To lovers, friends and enemies alike, Reilly remained a mystery. In spite of the many books that have been written about him, often themselves making contrary claims, major questions still remain unanswered about his true identity, place of birth and the precise facts surrounding his disappearance and death. During his life Reilly laid an almost impenetrable fog of mystery and deception around his origins as he adopted and shed one identity after another. Those who entered this ruthlessly compartmentalised life knew only what Reilly himself had told them.

Did it become a tradition of the Russian Intelligence, after the Sidney Reilly – Operation Trust Affair, to send the open, sarcastic “Greeting Cards” to their opponents, like them or Reilly himself sent it, at their connivance, on September 27, 1925 from Moscow to Berlin, to his MI6 Commander Ernest Boyce, informing him that he is allright and in Moscow. The exact facts around this postcard are still quite murky. I was not able to find the origins of this postcard, yet. It looks real, but it could be written by either CheKa, imitating his handwriting, or by Reilly himself. He was arrested very shortly after he mailed this postcard. Note the description of the front of the postcard: Lenin at the founding ceremony of the monument to Karl Marx. The organizing of the shooting at Lenin in 1918 was the main charge against Reilly, and the postcard reminded his MI6 boss about it. 

Were the shootings by Robert R. Card one of those “Greeting Cards”? 

Was it sent by Putin himself? 

M.N. | 3:02 PM 10/30/2023 

Selected Articles – The News And Times