The Sick World of Webcam Slaves Is Expanding

[Wayne]

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/spying-webcam-slaves

Stop what you're doing right now and peer into your webcam. Is the little green light on? If so, smile! You're on hacker camera.

If indeed you notice that little green light flickering when it's not supposed to, there's a good chance you have bigger problems on your hands than a rogue webcam. The popularity of Remote Administration Tool (RAT) software is on the rise, according to a new Ars Technica report, and it's getting pretty sophisticated. RAT software can find its way onto your hard drive through an email attachment or a corrupted torrent, and some of the tools enable hackers to tinker with everything from your contacts to your system files.

One of these tools is called DarkComet, which features the "Fun Manager," a dashboard that lets hackers mess with unsuspecting users' minds by hiding the Windows task bar or Start button, sending them a message, or even playing a random piano melody. These features are pretty banal compared to more basic but potentially more destructive abilities the program offers, like keystrokes logging and hijacking a computer for DDoS attacks. You might already be a hacker, and you don't even know it!

But the cam thing is still immediately disturbing for obvious reasons. There are hackers watching thousands and thousands of unsuspecting girls and boys all over the world. Nate Anderson from Ars explains how easy it is for someone to install software like DarkComet or the Blackshades, the same software that the Syrian government uses to spy on rebels, and start pwning strangers' webcams. There's even a handbook that teaches you all the basics for just $20 and suggests that you can break into between 500 and 3,000 computers a day. Anderson writes:

RAT operators have nearly complete control over the computers they infect; they can (and do) browse people's private pictures in search of erotic images to share with each other online. They even have strategies for watching where women store the photos most likely to be compromising. … Women who have this done to them, especially when the spying escalates into blackmail, report feeling paranoia.

Anderson wrote about these so-called "sextortionists" a couple of years ago and told a chilling story of one paraplegic, undocumented immigrant who targeted 230 victims, 44 of whom were minors, before being caught by the feds. This hacker would break into the unsuspecting victims' computers, gather up a bunch of information that could be used for blackmail — everything from naked pictures to credit card numbers — and demand they perform sex acts on camera in order to avoid the information being leaked. Said hacker was eventually convicted of felony extortion and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Whether forced to strip or robbed of confidential financial information, these victims are known by their attackers as "slaves." The term applies both the user and her computer, because even if nobody's logged in, a hacker just needs an Internet connection to break in and start snooping around a slave's computer.

If the slave's typed in bank information in the past, the hacker can log into her account and transfer money out. He can find names and addresses of friends or exes and use that information for sextortionist purposes. Or, he can just watch. He can watch the girls type. He can watch them get undressed in the background. And he can watch them react in dismay as he starts unleashing the capabilities of RAT software. Watch this poor girl feeding her baby freak out when he computer starts randomly loading porn websites:

Video has been removed.


As with all things hacker-related, this little RAT problem is not going to go away. Threads at places like Hack Forum show a growing number of would-be hackers taking an interest in the illicit business, and while some things that hackers do using RAT software is certainly illegal, it's rare for one to get caught. So as they're running around infecting folks, they're also becoming more confident in what they're doing since they're meeting others with a shared interest. It's as if an avid however isolated action figure collector realized that other people were also into buying unopened Battle Beasts on eBay and tried twice as hard to make his collection the best.

Or, more simply, it's like one pervert realizing that the world is actually full of perverts, meaning he is not alone in his perversion. "I have some good news for u guys we will all die sometime, really glad to know that there are other people like me who do this shit," said one poster on Hack Forum. "Always thought it was some kind of weird sick fetish because i enjoy messing with my girl slaves."

[Wayne]

One of the links from the story above

How an omniscient Internet “sextortionist” ruined the lives of teen girls
A paraplegic 32-year old hacker terrified teen girls from his neat ranch home …

In the spring of 2009, a college student named Amy received an instant message from someone claiming to know her. Certainly, the person knew something about her—he was able to supply details about what her bedroom looked like and he had, improbably, nude photos of Amy. He sent the photos to her and asked her to have "Web sex" with him.

Instead, Amy contacted her boyfriend Dave, who had been storing the naked photos on his own computer. (Note: victim names have been changed in this story). The two students exchanged instant messages about Amy's apparent stalker, trying to figure out what had happened. Soon after the exchange, each received a separate threat from the man. He knew what they had just chatted about, he warned, and they were not to take their story to anyone, including the police.

Amy, terrified by her stalker's eerie knowledge, contacted campus police. Officers were dispatched to her room, where they took down Amy's story and asked her questions about the incident. Soon after, Dave received more threats from the stalker because Amy had gone to the police—and the stalker knew exactly what she had said to them.

Small wonder that, when the FBI later interviewed Amy about the case, she was "visibly upset and shaking during parts of the interview and had to stop at points to control her emotions and stop herself from crying." So afraid was Amy for her own safety that she did not leave her dorm room for a full week after the threats.

As for Dave, he suffered increased fear, anxiety, confusion, and anger; he later told a court that even his parents "had a hard time trusting anyone or even feeling comfortable enough to use a computer" after the episode.

Due in large part to the stress of the attack, Dave and Amy broke up.

But who had the mysterious stalker been? And how did he have access both to the contents of Dave's computer and to private discussions with police that Amy conducted in the privacy of her own room?

Why is my webcam light on?
The bizarre case wasn't an isolated incident. Around the same time, a Los Angeles area juvenile named Sara received an instant message from a screen name that looked almost identical to her boyfriend's. The person behind it asked her for pornographic photos; she supplied them. She soon realized her mistake, but it was too late. Threats began to roll in, saying that her mysterious interlocutor would post Sarah's nude photos on the Internet if she did not send more. When Sara e-mailed copies of these threats to her boyfriend, the stalker knew. He even called her on the phone to make the threats more personal.

"For the longest time I didn't know who this man was, why he was doing it or [if] he would come back," Sara later wrote in a victim impact statement. "Not knowing is the worst, most dreaded feeling. It's always in the back of your mind. I moved away from the LA/OC [Los Angeles/Orange County] area but even here the thoughts never left me."

In another case, a woman named Gloria received an e-mail with the subject line "who hacked your account READ it!!!" from someone who claimed to have invaded her machine. Why? The hacker said it was because Gloria's ex-boyfriend had hired him to do so—a "particularly traumatic" move, as the government later noted, because Gloria had actually taken out a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend, who had been harassing her. Gloria didn't reply to the e-mail and soon received another, this time containing a nude picture of her and promising to post it across the Internet if Gloria didn't do as he wished.

It was one of the few cases where the stalker acted on his warning. After Gloria sent copies of these threats to a friend of hers, the stalker somehow knew about it and told her, “you pissed me off now I'm going to show you.” Her nude photo was posted to MySpace—appearing on the account of the friend to whom Gloria had shown the stalker's threats.

The cases grew stranger. A 17-year old girl was online when she received an instant message from her sister—but her sister was in the next room and not using a computer. Various women reported that the lights on their laptop webcams would pop on at times when the cameras weren't in use; one woman was so unnerved by the behavior that she covered her own computer's camera with a sticker to make sure no one was spying on her.

But someone had been, and he went after so many people that Glendale, California police finally realized a broader pattern was emerging in their area. The FBI investigated and on March 8, 2010, after six months of investigations and interviews, obtained a federal search warrant for a small, neat home on Monica Lane in Santa Ana. Two days later, the feds descended, looking for their man.


Mijangos' Santa Ana home
Google Maps
Meet Guicho
Inside the home, they found 32-year old Luis "Guicho" Mijangos sitting a wheelchair. Mijangos was an illegal alien and a paraplegic who hadn't walked since he was around 17, when a drive-by gunshot wound paralyzed him from the waist down. He grew up—unhappily, in his telling—in Mexico, where his father was "harassed" and later died. After the death, Mijangos' mother took her son to the US and eventually remarried.

Despite his injuries, Mijangos had prospects. He had taken computer classes at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa and become proficient in Java, C++, and Web design. He set up home-based Web and computer consulting business and told investigators that he was clearing a respectable $1,000 per week.

But when the FBI showed up with a search warrant, Mijangos quickly admitted to much more. He worked with a few “black hat” hackers, he said, helping them transfer money and make use of stolen credit cards. He claimed that his criminal role was deliberately kept minor “because it meant that he would face less trouble from the police,” according to the account of the FBI Special Agent who interviewed him.

Agents had doubts about the scope of this initial account. Mijangos admitted that he did sometimes hack into other people's computers. A favorite trick was seeding peer-to-peer networks with popular-sounding song titles that were actually malware; when someone downloaded and executed the file, their machine was infected and would open itself to Mijangos's control. He claimed to have done this only five times.

And when it came to the crazy stalker-style behavior that so many women (and some men) had reported, Mijangos said his work was being misconstrued. Instead of “sextorting" his victims, Mijangos said he "hacked into female victim accounts at the request of boyfriends and husbands to determine whether the female victims were cheating on their boyfriends or husbands,” according to an FBI account. “Mijangos said he was supposed to be paid for this conduct but was not.

"Mijangos acknowledged he threatened to expose these pictures, and reckoned the threats might look like extortion, but stated that he did so to discourage anyone from contacting the authorities. Mijangos also acknowledged he asked for additional sexual videos but only to determine whether they would actually do it.”

It didn't take long to punch a hole in these claims. The FBI recovered four laptops, a BlackBerry, and a host of USB drives from Mijangos's home; a “filter team” scoured the devices for anything that fit the parameters of the search warrant. After vetting, such material was turned over to the FBI agents working the case, who learned that Mijangos had actually gone after 129 different computers for a total of 230 victims. Forty-four of the victims were juveniles.

The FBI found different kinds of malware on the computers, including tools to install a key logger on remote machines, software to turn on webcams and microphones attached to infected computers, and "dozens of videos" from those webcams, most showing the victims " getting out of the shower, dressing for the day, having sex with a partner.”

In a file called "things importan" [sic], the FBI even found screen captures from victim machines showing identifying information about them displayed on bank and financial websites.

On June 17, 2010, the FBI Cyber Squad operating out of Los Angeles swore out an arrest warrant against Mijangos. Five days later, Mijangos was arrested at 6:10 am and charged with felony extortion.


A long list of accusations
Sextortion
After his arrest, Mijangos later admitted that he made up to $3,000 a day performing "complicated financial hacks" with others. He hung around in online hacker forums like "CC Power," learned how to use malware tools like Poison Ivy and SpyNet to gain entry to other machines, and use "crypter" software to hide his work from anti-virus and security programs.

Some of the hacks simply targeted individuals, slipping the initial malware onto their machines through P2P networks. Once he had control, Mijangos's malware contacted mijangos.no-ip.org, a service that obscured his own domain name while giving his malware a persistent location for phoning home. When contact was made, Mijangos could download additional code like keyloggers to the infected machines, and it was a simple matter to grab and misuse people's credit cards after that.

But the truly odd "sextortion" behavior was Mijangos's calling card. Indeed, as the government later put it, he "dedicated considerable time to toying with victims." If he obtained access to a woman's computer, he searched for incriminating photos and video—or accessed the webcam and tried to take some of his own. If he obtained access to a man's computer, he instead impersonated the male and reached out to the man's girlfriend to ask for nude photos. With photos in hand, Mijangos would approach the women and threaten to post the picture publicly unless they sent additional nude videos of themselves. Some women did so.

He then spent considerable time monitoring people's communications. In the case of his most spectacular hacks, Mijangos could watch the instant messaging and e-mail communications of both a boyfriend and girlfriend, and could even listen in to conversations made over the phone or in person with police by using the computer's built-in microphone. The omniscient effect this created tended to terrify victims; one said later that she felt like her life had been taken from her.


The government defines "sextortion"
On March 21, 2011, Mijangos reached a plea deal with the government and copped to two felony charges, computer hacking and wiretapping. The deal required that, whenever he might leave prison, Mijangos would report all computer use, online accounts, and passwords to his probation officer, and "shall not hide or encrypt files or data without prior approval."

On September 1, federal judge George King sentenced Mijangos to 72 months in prison for his “psychological warfare” and "sustained effort to terrorize victims."

“The FBI has seen a rise in similar cases based on the exploitation of emerging technologies by criminals," said Steven Martinez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, in a statement after the sentencing, "and it’s my hope that this sentence serves as a warning for victims of Internet predators to advise law enforcement or a trusted source when threatened, and always refrain from sending compromising photographs via cyberspace."

But people just won't refrain, as illustrated by the rise of "sextortion" cases across the country. In one of the most memorable, a male high school student just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, conned numerous male classmates into sending him nude pictures of themselves, then demanded that some engage in sex acts with him to keep the pictures from coming out.

Citing a few more recent examples, an August Associated Press story claimed that sextortion is on the rise in the US, and the government has taken to using the term in its criminal filings.

Without nude pictures and compromising videos, the attackers in such cases have no leverage—but digital devices have made it so easy to point, shoot, and share that everyone involved in the Mijangos hacks already had such pictures, and didn't appear to have hidden or secured them. With pictures that common, but taboos against their public distribution still strong, sextortion will certainly continue. But at least Luis Mijangos won't be doing it.

[Wayne]

The Remote Administration Tool is the revolver of the Internet's Wild West.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... r-webcams/

"See! That shit keeps popping up on my f***ing computer!" says a blond woman as she leans back on a couch, bottle-feeding a baby on her lap.

The woman is visible from thousands of miles away on a hacker's computer. The hacker has infected her machine with a remote administration tool (RAT) that gives him access to the woman's screen, to her webcam, to her files, to her microphone. He watches her and the baby through a small control window open on his Windows PC, then he decides to have a little fun. He enters a series of shock and pornographic websites and watches them appear on the woman's computer.

The woman is startled. "Did it scare you?" she asks someone off camera. A young man steps into the webcam frame. "Yes," he says. Both stare at the computer in horrified fascination. A picture of old naked men appears in their Web browser, then vanishes as a McAfee security product blocks a "dangerous site."

"I think someone hacked into our computer," says the young man.

Far away, the hacker opens his "Fun Manager" control panel, which provides a host of tools for messing with his RAT victims. He can hide their Windows "Start" button or the taskbar or the clock or the desktop, badly confusing many casual Windows users. He can have their computer speak to them. Instead, he settles for popping open the remote computer's optical drive.

Even over the webcam, the sound of shock is clear. "Stay right here," says the woman.

"Whoa!... the DVD thing just opened," says the young man.

The hacker sends the pair a message that reads "achoo!" and the young man laughs in astonishment. "Disconnect from the Internet," he says. "Your laptop's going to go kaboom next."

The video freezes, the mayhem lasting for slightly more than one minute. Copies of the incident aren't hard to find. They're on YouTube, along with thousands of other videos showing RAT controller (or "ratters," as they will be called here) taunting, pranking, or toying with victims. But, of course, the kinds of people who watch others through their own webcams aren't likely to limit themselves to these sorts of mere hijinks—not when computers store and webcams record far more intimate material.


Using a RAT to scare victims.
“i enjoy messing with my girl slaves”

"Man I feel dirty looking at these pics," wrote one forum poster at Hack Forums, one of the top "aboveground" hacking discussion sites on the Internet (it now has more than 23 million total posts). The poster was referencing a 134+ page thread filled with the images of female "slaves" surreptitiously snapped by hackers using the women's own webcams. "Poor people think they are alone in their private homes, but have no idea they are the laughing stock on HackForums," he continued. "It would be funny if one of these slaves venture into learning how to hack and comes across this thread."

Whether this would in fact be "funny" is unlikely. RAT operators have nearly complete control over the computers they infect; they can (and do) browse people's private pictures in search of erotic images to share with each other online. They even have strategies for watching where women store the photos most likely to be compromising.

"I just use the file manager feature of my RAT in whatever one im using and in [a RAT called] cybergate I use the search feature to find those jpgs [JPEG image files] that are 'hidden' unless u dig and dig and dig," wrote one poster. "A lot of times the slave will download pics from their phone or digital camera and I watch on the remote desktop to see where they save em to and that's usually where you'll find the jackpot!"

Women who have this done to them, especially when the spying escalates into blackmail, report feeling paranoia. One woman targeted by the California "sextortionist" Luis Mijangos wouldn't leave her dorm room for a week after Mijangos turned her laptop into a sophisticated bugging device. Mijangos began taunting her with information gleaned from offline conversations.


Watching a young girl in Malaysia. Note RAT control center running in background.
For many ratters, though, the spying remains little more than a game. It might be an odd hobby, but it's apparently no big deal to invade someone's machine, rifle through the personal files, and watch them silently from behind their own screens. "Most of my slaves are boring," wrote one aspiring ratter. "Wish I could get some more girls with webcams. It makes it more exciting when you can literally spy on someone. Even if they aren't getting undressed!"

One poster said he had already archived 200GB of webcam material from his slaves. "Mostly I pick up the best bits (funny parts, the 'good' [sexual] stuff) and categorize them (name, address, passwords etc.), just for funsake," he wrote. "For me I don't have the feeling of doing something perverted, it's more or less a game, cat and mouse game, with all the bonuses included. The weirdest thing is, when I see the person you've been spying on in real life, I've had that a couple of times, it just makes me giggle, especially if it's someone with an uber-weird-nasty habit."

By finding their way to forums filled with other ratters, these men—and they appear to be almost exclusively men—gain community validation for their actions. "lol I have some good news for u guys we will all die sometime, really glad to know that there are other people like me who do this shit," one poster wrote. "Always thought it was some kind of wierd sick fetish because i enjoy messing with my girl slaves."

As another poster put it in a thread called ☆ ShowCase ☆ Girl Slaves On Your RAT, "We are all going to hell for this..." But he followed it with a smiley face.

Welcome to the weird world of the ratters. They operate quite openly online, sharing the best techniques for picking up new female slaves (and avoiding that most unwanted of creatures, "old perverted men") in public forums. Even when their activities trip a victim's webcam light and the unsettled victim reaches forward to put a piece of tape over the webcam, the basic attitude is humorous—Ha! You got us! On to the next slave!

And there are plenty of slaves.


A woman unknowingly captured by her own webcam.
How it’s done

RAT tools aren't new; the hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow famously released an early one called BackOrifice at the Defcon hacker convention in 1998. The lead author, who went by the alias Sir Dystic, called BackOrifice a tool designed for "remote tech support aid and employee monitoring and administering [of a Windows network]." But the Cult of the Dead Cow press release made clear that BackOrifice was meant to expose "Microsoft's Swiss cheese approach to security." Compared to today's tools, BackOrifice was primitive. It could handle the basics, though: logging keystrokes, restarting the target machine, transferring files between computers, and snapping screenshots of the target computer.

Today, a cottage industry exists to build sophisticated RAT tools with names like DarkComet and BlackShades and to install and administer them on dozens or even hundreds of remote computers. When anti-malware vendors began to detect and clean these programs from infected computers, the RAT community built "crypters" to disguise the target code further. Today, serious ratters seek software that is currently "FUD"—fully undetectable.


Enlarge

Enlarge

Enlarge
Building an army of slaves isn't particularly complicated; ratters simply need to trick their targets into running a file. This is commonly done by seeding file-sharing networks with infected files and naming them after popular songs or movies, or through even more creative methods. "I seem to get a lot of female slaves by spreading Sims 3 with a [RAT] server on torrent sites," wrote one poster. Another turned to social media, where "I've been able to message random hot girls on facebook (0 mutual friends) and infect (usually become friends with them too); with the right words anything is possible."

For those who can't even manage this on their own, RAT experts hawk their slave-infecting expertise in e-books such as Rusty_v's Spreading Guide v 7.0, a 22-page tome that goes for $14.95 (and which claims to be the best-selling book on Hack Forums). "Ever faced a situation where you have FUD server but cannot get victims?" goes the sales pitch. "Or maybe you're getting a lot less installs compared to the amount of work you are putting in?" Followers of Rusty_v's methods are told they can pick up 500-3,000 slaves per day. The book is "noob friendly" and features "many screenshots."

And if even this handholding isn't enough, more successful ratters sometimes rent out slaves they have already infected. In other cases, they simply hand them off to others in a "Free Girl Slave Giveaway."

Calling most of these guys "hackers" does a real disservice to hackers everywhere; only minimal technical skill is now required to deploy a RAT and acquire slaves. Once infected, all the common RAT software provides a control panel view in which one can see all current slaves, their locations, and the status of their machines. With a few clicks, the operator can start watching the screen or webcam of any slave currently online.

The process is now simple enough that some ratters engage in it without knowing how RATs really work or even how vulnerable they are to being caught. Back in 2010, one Hack Forums member entered the RAT subforum worried about going to jail. He had hacked a Danish family's computer in order to get a child's Steam account credentials, but the Danish kid realized that something was wrong and called in his mother and older brother. The hacker included a picture of all three of them looking down at the computer, the younger kid crying, the mother stern.

"They told me they would call the cops, etc and im going to jail?!" said the hacker. "WHAT DO I DO!? DO I GIVE THEM THE SHIT BACK OR UNINSTALL THEM FROM MY RAT!?"

Then, a few minutes later, when the hacker saw the mother with a phone in her hand, he returned to say, "im shaking irl [in real life]... I hope I won't get caught... hes mom & dad was at the phone calling the cops, while him & his brother was MAD crying, i already laughed for 30mins+ until it got serious about his mom & dad."

"LOL, don't worry you ain't going to jail," another member responded.

This is probably true; few such ratters are ever found.

That pesky light

One of the biggest problems ratters face is the increasing prevalence of webcam lights that indicate when the camera is in use. Entire threads are devoted to bypassing the lights, which routinely worry RAT victims and often lead to the loss of slaves.

"Unfortunately she asked her boyfriend why the light on her cam kept coming on," one RAT controller wrote. "And he knew, she never came back "

Another described testing DarkComet on a male slave and activating the man's webcam. "A man came up and saw that his webcam was on, he then put the middle finger up to me lmao [laughing my ass off]," wrote the hacker. "I then went to remote desktop and he had lots of pr0nz [pornography] up, but he was also freaking out and scanning his computer with two different anti-virus [programs]. It was pretty funny, but he actually managed to remove the infected server from his PC, he used some 'ad-ware' software which managed to remove it."

Others trade pictures of victims taking action to secure their computers. "ive had this girl since i started ratting but she has a light on her cam," wrote one RAT user, "shame coz shes really pretty with her hair down. see her busting me lol."

To combat detection, the RAT controllers have devised various workarounds. One involves compiling lists of laptop models which don't have webcam lights and then taking special pains to verify the make and model of slave laptops to see if they are on the list.

"You may need to do some remote desktop action when you're pretty certain they're not looking and find an OEM tag in system properties but the surest way is to look for OEM bloatware like wireless utilities and such," wrote one RAT users. "Once you figure that out, if it's an Acer, you're golden. Some other laptops are good too and using specs and some other information you can often determine a model."

Others rely on a little bit of social engineering. "The first time I use a slaves cam tho I send a fake message saying something like the cams software is updating and the light may come on and go off periodicially ," wrote a RAT user, "but obviously in a more windows-like way of saying it!"

But no solution has been foolproof—and not for lack of a market. As one eager user wrote, "If someone release[s] soft[ware] which will disable the led cam light he will be the richest man in HF [Hack Forums]!!!"


A young woman covers her webcam as someone watches her with a RAT.
“Damn morals”

RAT forum denizens aren't wholly lacking in moral reflection, though most is of a peculiar kind. "Imagine your sister is being posted right here, how would you feel?" wrote one poster, which sounds like an exhortation to stop ratting. But the poster immediately concluded that the only real rule is not to hack "nice gurls." And even if one does hack "nice gurls," just "dont post them online, Keep em for yourself."

Posters do show up once in a while to rage against the fairly shocking privacy violations casually shared in these forums. "Everyone who is spying on girls does deserve the jail!" one wrote. "Most of you have no girlfriend or are perverts or are 12 years old. Man get older and don't do this.... I hope all of you die... It is the worst thing a Hacker could do ! THE WORST ! Learn something more complictaed then Ratting."

But to the regulars this is just the talk of "some jelous peeps out there who probably cant find any girls to take there servers. its nothing compared to people stealing accounts and shit like that and its doing no harm as long as there not aware of it what the problem? if you dont like dont look."

The actual moral discussions in the forums tend to accept ratting as a bit of legitimate fun, but one that may have its own rules of "fair play." These rules are few, however, and even bringing them up irritates those who just want to see pictures of female slaves. "Here is not an ethical forum... and everyone does what he wants," wrote one poster. More often, the concerns are simply pragmatic ones about jail, lawsuits, and retaliation. Consider the following bizarre exchange:

POSTER 1:

Can't wait to get my RAT setup, some pretty hot chicks in here Also, do you all think it would be wrong to RAT chicks you know? I know some VERY hot ones that would be easy as shit to infect. Damn morals.

POSTER 2:

well the moral part is one thing
but infecting a known person can be a risk
if they found out you infected them, you can loose the friendship, be marked as a pervert in your friendships and even worse she could sue you
i did it once and found some lucky things (so i want to du it again like the perv am i ^^ )
I rat one of the hottest classmate i had and was lucky
i found some topless pics and even some blowjob picture
too bad the girl died by an illness :'(
i'm sad for 2 reasons
first i liked her, she was not a best friend, but a classmate i often speak with...
second, i did not get all the stuff she had, her damn internet was slow like hell .... i get about a dozen pictures from her external harddrive (well hidden)
i saw her online in the RAT a couple of times, but never with the external harddrive and i never found something on her desktop...
Then i never saw her online again, i throught : shit i loose her, need to find a way to install a new FUD version ...
but about 2-3 month later i learned she died by a illness
Other ratters have a soft spot for certain scenarios. Taking over other people's computers might not be bad, spying on them might be OK, but making young children cry might cross a line. "Give him back his account," wrote one poster in reference to the Danish kid who had his Steam account hacked (see above). "Christ the kid is in tears."

But morals generally take a back seat to mockery. One popular thread, running for more than a year, with 59 pages of comments, asks people to "Post your ugly slaves here." One of the most popular responses involves people caught picking their noses.


All Most information is good information

Regardless of legality—and online forums are strongly protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for all manner of offensive user-posted material—why would anyone want to host such content? I put the question to Jesse LaBrocca, the Las Vegas-based creator and operator of Hack Forums.

He responded with a strong defense of the idea that information should be open to all and he pointed to the Wikipedia entry on keyloggers to illustrate his point. "It's a fair amount of information including functions in Windows you would hook into to use a keylogger," he told me by e-mail. "At what point does Wikipedia and the Internet community decide it's too much information? And is there actually such a thing as 'too much information?'"

Possibly not, but my question wasn't about the existence of a forum devoted to RATs or to technical discussion about them. It was about the fact that the RAT subforum is filled with posts in which people explicitly show that they have illegally invaded other people's computers, that they are spying on them—sometimes while naked—and that they buy, sell, and trade slaves openly.


Enlarge / No doubt this is intended for entirely lawful purposes.
"My personal morals and ethics I try not to ram down the throats of members," LaBrocca responded when I followed up. "No doubt I've seen and read some very appalling posts over the years. Things I would never participate in or encourage. But I'm not the moral compass for complete strangers and I won't put myself into that position."

And yet he has, with remarkable specificity. Hack Forums is one of the largest public hacker-focused sites anywhere. (Serious criminals, of course, prefer private forums that require vetting to enter—which is one reason that law enforcement creates such sites when it wants to catch them.) It has its own 18-point code of behavior that prohibits even discussion of remarkably specific "blackhat hacking activities" like phishing, eBay partnerships, e-mail dumps, credit card fraud, identity theft, conversations about two specific botnets (Zeus and SpyEye), extortion, the "deepweb" (sites available only through services like Tor), keygens, warez, the sale of Apple products—even unauthorized movie torrents.

But the list is quite idiosyncratic. Hack Forums warns that members are often hack targets themselves, "whether by an outsider or a rogue member." A member who hacks another member will be "warned or banned" from the site. On the other hand, members who sell botnet access or who buy slaves or who "need an e-mail account hacked" can apparently remain in good standing.

Which brought me back to my original question. The site enforces all sorts of behavior codes, so why is apparently illegal and invasive conduct—not simply "information" or "discussion"—accepted? LaBrocca politely declined to respond further. Instead, he pointed me to a site statement announcing, "We don't explain the logic behind each forbidden activity, but it's somewhere between morality, ethics, and legality for each one."

Too often, he said, those with questions about the site "find a thread you don't like and use it to throw the site under the bus. I can give you countless examples how HF has positively changed people's lives."

I fought the law


Enlarge / On finding a photo called "me.jpg," one ratter discovers that he has infected a cop's computer.
RATs can be entirely legitimate. Security companies have used them to help find and retrieve stolen laptops, for instance, and no one objects to similar remote login software such as LogMeIn. The developers behind RAT software generally describe their products as nothing more than tools which can be used for good and ill. And yet some tools have features that make them look a lot like they're built with lawlessness in mind.

Adam Kujawa, a researcher at security firm MalwareBytes, compiled a list last summer of everything that popular RAT DarkComet could do. It included:

Find out all system information, including hardware being used and the exact version of your operating system, including security patches
Control all the processes currently running on your system
View and modify your registry
Modify your Hosts file
Control your computer from a remote shell
Modify your startup processes and services, including adding a few of its own
Execute various types of scripts on your system
Modify/View/Steal your files
Put files of its own on your system
Steal your stored password
Listen to your microphone
Log your keystrokes (duh)
Scan your network
View your network shares
Mess with your MSN Messenger / Steal your contacts / Add new contacts!
Steal from your clipboard (things you’ve copied)
Control your printer
Lock/Restart/Shutdown your computer
Update the implant with a new address to beacon to or new functionality
Watch your webcam
Use your computer in a denial of service (DOS) attack
And that's not all. DarkComet includes a "Fun Manager" that can perform all sorts of tricks on the target system, including:

Hiding the Desktop—Hiding all the icons and making it impossible to right click on the desktop.
Hide the Clock—Self Explanatory
Hide Task Icons—In the little box on the right side of your start bar
Hide Sys Tray Icons—Hide icons and open application buttons on the taskbar
Hide Taskbar—Self Explanatory
Hide the Start Button—Only works in Win XP
Disable the Start Button (XP Only)—Gray out the start button, disabling it.
Disable TaskMgr—Disables the Windows Task Manager (When you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del)
Open/Close CD Tray—Self Explanatory
Even that isn't all. The RAT can also activate Microsoft's text-to-speech software on the remote system so that it reads strings of text out loud—an effective startle tactic. It can open a chat window. And it can play notes from a piano or a specific frequency for as long as desired. (As Kujawa notes, "The purpose of this feature [as far as I can tell] is just to annoy people.")


Enlarge / The DarkComet "Fun Manager."
Malwarebytes

Enlarge / DarkComet's piano player.
Malwarebytes
Does such software cross the line into illegality? Perhaps. In June 2012, the FBI arrested Michael "xVisceral" Hogue at his home in Tucson, Arizona and charged him with selling "malware that allows cybercriminals to take over and control, remotely, the operations of an infected computer." Hogue had created Blackshades, which the government described as "a sophisticated piece of malware."

Blackshades went beyond DarkComet in its support for features that were likely to result in illegality, such as the "File Hijacker" that could encrypt a victim's key files and then pop up a "ransomware" message demanding payment into a remote bank account in order to free the files. (A note attached to this feature said: "However, one thing to put in mind: This feature was made for educational purposes only.")

In June 2010, Hogue allegedly joined a private "carder" website catering to online criminals dealing in the theft, sale, and malicious use of credit card numbers. The site was actually a honeypot run by the FBI, however; the government says that Hogue sought admin approval to sell Blackshades there and ended up chatting with an FBI Special Agent. According to the complaint against Hogue, he then showed the FBI his personal RAT dashboard. An agent described the moment this way:

When I logged into the Blackshades Net service (that is, the interface that is a component of the RAT), I was able to see the names of nine computers that had been infected with the malware component of the RAT. Those computers were located in Germany, the United States, Denmark, Poland, and Canada. (The FBI has taken steps to identify and locate these victims.) By clicking on the name of an infected computer, I was presented with a menu of options including the ability to initiate key logging on the infected computer—that is, I was able to remotely turn on a service that would record every keystroke of the user of the infected computer. So, for instance, if the victim visited a banking website and entered his or her username and password, the key logging program could record that information, which could then be used to access the victim's bank account.
In further MSN chats with the FBI, the person alleged to be Hogue answered a question about whether the Blackshades software would automatically conduct key logging or whether it had to be initiated manually. "It auto does, and you can download from all at once, or scan for keywords or digits," came the reply. "And if it detects a credit card is being entered, it can send screenshots to FTP and you can scan for digits that are 16 in a row "


A man awakened by the sounds of "screaming" porn a ratter has played through his computer.
This isn't the sort of thing that legitimate security firms generally tell potential clients, and the description of the software on the Blackshades website didn't help matters. It advertised the program's ability to "automatically map your ports, seed your torrent for you, and spread through AIM, MSN, ICQ, and USB devices." The software, sold for $50 per copy, does not appear to have netted its creator that much cash. According to a court filing from January 2013, the government is seeking forfeiture of only about $40,000 from Hogue. (The Blackshades software remains available for sale, the codebase apparently administered by at least one other person. The sales site currently suggests that Blackshades be used by those who have "ever questioned what your spouse, kids or employees have been doing on the computer" or anyone who want to know, "Are your employees mailing your business data to your competitors?")

A few weeks after Hogue's arrest, another prominent RAT author announced his retirement from such work. Jean-Pierre Lesueur shut down DarkComet with a message blaming his users. "I have devoted years with a nonprofit philosophy for you to enjoy without asking anything in return other than respect of the rules, unfortunately some of you couldn't respect the terms," he wrote. "Why did I take such a decision? Like it was said above because of the misuse of the tool, and unlike so many of you seem to believe, I can be held responsible of your actions, and if there is something I will not tolerate it is having to pay the consequences for your mistakes and I will not cover for you." He then added, "Without mentioning what happened in Syria..."

The last line is a reference to the fact that the Syrian government used tools like Blackshades and DarkComet in 2012 as part of its war with Syrian rebels. The conclusion drawn by the researchers at Malwarebytes was that RAT creators had unwittingly become low-cost arms dealers to repressive regimes that couldn't afford to develop such tools themselves.

"Over the past few weeks," Malwarebytes concluded in mid-2012, "we have seen the most intricate piece of spy malware ever developed (Flame) and being used for cyber espionage purposes against the infrastructure of developed countries, and then we look at the poverty stricken government of Syria and see over-the-counter RATs being used. It is clear that even in cyber war, the more developed countries have better weapons while the poorer countries use whatever they can get their hands on."

RAT control


RATs aren't going away, despite the occasional intervention of the authorities. Too many exist, plenty of them are entirely legal, and source code is in the wild (a version of the Blackshades source leaked in 2010). Those who don't want to end up being toyed with in a YouTube video are advised to take the same precautions that apply to most malware: use a solid anti-malware program, keep your operating system updated, and make sure plugins (especially Flash and Java) aren't out of date. Don't visit dodgy forums or buy dodgy items, don't click dodgy attachments in e-mail, and don't download dodgy torrents. Such steps won't stop every attack, but they will foil many casual users looking to add a few more slaves to their collections.

If you are unlucky enough to have your computer infected with a RAT, prepare to be sold or traded to the kind of person who enters forums to ask, "Can I get some slaves for my rat please? I got 2 bucks lol I will give it to you :b" At that point, the indignities you will suffer—and the horrific website images you may see—will be limited only by the imagination of that most terrifying person: a 14-year-old boy with an unsupervised Internet connection.

[firefly]

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/08 ... om-photos/

August 15, 2013

Newly crowned Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf is allegedly the latest victim of sextortion.

According to the LA Times, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed on Wednesday that it's investigating claims by Wolf and other women who say that their webcams were hacked, photos or video were taken surreptitiously, and that the hacker or hackers then demanded money in exchange for keeping the photos out of public disclosure.

Wolf, of Orange County, California, was Miss California Teen USA before winning the Miss Teen USA pageant over the weekend at the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas.

19-year-old Ms. Wolf has told reporters that prior to being crowned, she received an anonymous email from someone who claimed to have nude photos of her, taken via the webcam on her computer.

Wolf told Today News that about four months ago, Facebook notified her about somebody trying to log into her account from another state.

She then received an email saying that the person had photos of her taken in her bedroom via her computer's hacked webcam. The person, who hasn't been named in the ongoing federal investigation, tried to extort her in exchange for keeping the photos from being made public.

As if everyday webcam hacking weren't shocking enough, this case apparently involves a webcam that was hacked without the telltale camera light coming on to indicate that it was recording.

This is how Ms Wolf tells it:

"I wasn't aware that somebody was watching me [on my webcam]. The [camera] light didn't even go on, so I had no idea."

Is that possible? Can webcams be rigged so as to record without the light coming on?

Sophos Senior Security Advisor Chester Wisniewski has looked at the issue, and he says it depends:

"Some laptops allow you to turn the light on and off in software, others only work physically. I think it is certainly possible, if unlikely."

But if it's unlikely to suffer a webcam hacking that manages to turn off the camera's "on" light, plain old vanilla webcam hacking that leaves the light on isn't very unlikely at all.

In fact, as the BBC reported in June, there's a thriving black market for access to computers whose webcams have been compromised.

Stolen webcam video of females cost $1 per "slave," as they're called. Stolen video of male slaves goes for $1/100 slaves.

As for Ms. Wolf, she has turned her alleged victimization into a crusade. Today News reports that after she was named Miss California, she traveled to schools to raise awareness about cybercrime among teens.

Her advice to teens is to routinely clear their browsing history and change their password into something difficult to guess.

She's quoted by International Business Times on password hygiene:

"I had the same password for years. But now seeing that someone can hack into my stuff just by downloading an incorrect link, it's very important to change your passwords, delete your cookies."

Having a safe password is absolutely the right way to go. Here's one way to create one.

I would also suggest to Ms. Wolf that if she's not telling teens this already, to please urge them against using the same password on multiple sites.

And since multiple hard-to-crack passwords can be tough to wrangle, Ms. Wolf also might want to suggest the use of a password manager, such as KeePass, 1Password or LastPass.

Webcam. Image courtesy of ShutterstockWhen we report on webcam spying at Naked Security, we typically tell users to keep an eye on the light. That, evidently, won't stop remote hackers of webcams who manage to turn off the camera light via accessing its software.

But given that, as Chet notes, such a hack is unlikely, it's still a good idea to keep an eye on the light. Better still, cover it with a patch - a tiny piece of black tape, say, or a sticker or bandage - when you're not using the camera.

Ms. Wolf, for her part, has said that she's prepared for another attack by putting a sticker over her webcam when it's not in use.

Nice going on your cybercrime defense education work, Ms. Wolf, and best of luck with your continued studies, be it with your beloved jazz dancing or the hair-raising world of cybercrime.

[firefly]

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/06 ... e-victims/

June 21, 2013

Stolen webcam video listed at $1 per female victim, $1 per 100 male victims

Do only the truly paranoid stick bandages over their webcams so they don't get surreptitiously recorded?

According to a BBC Radio 5 live investigation, the rationale for doing so might be strong enough to vindicate the paranoid, given input from webcam hackers who say that such hacking is simple and that black markets for selling access to compromised computers are "thriving."

One webcam hacker who spoke to the BBC said "loads of people" are hacking webcams because it's so simple to do.

In fact, while he was being interviewed, he was on a forum with tutorials on how to hack webcams. It had about 428,000 posts, he said.

Hackers gain access to their victims' computers with remote-access Trojans (RATs) - malware that gives an intruder administrative control over its targeted computers, including, in this case, the ability to remotely control webcams.

It's an invisibly-installed malware program spread via email attachment or by tricking victims into visiting a booby-trapped site.

The BBC interviewed one victim who thinks she was victimized by webcam hacking.

Rachel Hyndman said that she noticed that her laptop camera had switched itself on while she was watching a DVD in the bath.

She was, of course, horrified:

"I was sitting in the bath, trying to relax, and suddenly someone potentially has access to me in this incredibly private moment and it's horrifying.

"To have it happen to you without your consent is horribly violating."

For the investigation, a BBC producer posed online as a computer security enthusiast in order to contact several webcam hackers from around the world - at least one of whom has since been arrested.

The investigation uncovered websites where hackers share pictures and videos of their victims aka "slaves", pages where they swap photos of "ugly slaves", sites where men swap images of female "slaves", and evidence of at least one black market where you can buy access to a woman's webcam for $1 (64p).

The same amount will get you access to 100 computers owned by men.

How common is this type of hack?

Graham Cluley told the BBC that webcam hacking is quite real.

That's evidenced by multiple arrests of perpetrators - including those looking to blackmail victims.

But while it is real, GC says, webcam hacking is rare enough that it's not quite worth freaking out over in the broader scheme of virusy things:

"There are 100,000 new virus threats created every day and it's really important to keep your security up to date because anti-virus software should protect you against most of these threats."

Still, you don't want to be one of the (albeit rare) victims.

A list of tips on avoiding getting webcam-hacked (...):

Keep your antivirus and firewall protection up to date.
Patch applications in a timely fashion.
Be wary of email and social networking messages from strangers, and refrain from clicking on attachments or links in any such messages.
Don't take your webcam into intimate places, even if an error message tells you your computer needs hot steam to clean its sensor (true story!).
When not in use, cover your webcam lens (bandages work well) or point it at the wall.
Think twice before stripping for a conversation - remember, whomever you're talking to can record and share the video.
Teach young people how to behave safely online to avoid them becoming victims.
Encourage children who've been victimized via webcam to report it to a trusted adult.
If you've been victimized yourself, report it to the authorities.
Stay safe, and keep an eye on that webcam light.

[Wayne]

Man admits 'sextortion' of Miss Teen USA; lawyer says he's autistic

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... z2kUX5azDn

The attorney for a 19-year-old man who pleaded guilty Tuesday to "sextorting" photos via hacked personal computers of at least dozen women including Miss Teen USA, said his client has autism, but that it was no excuse for the behavior.

Jared James Abrahams of Temecula faces 27 to 33 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to four federal crimes, including unauthorized accessed of a computer and extortion involving victims from their late teens to their early 20s around the globe. Among them was Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf, who went public with the effort to extort her.

“When Jared was first approached by law enforcement he gave them a full and complete admission … and he pleaded guilty,” said his attorney, Alan Eisner. “There is no good reason for his activities. These were intrusions with real victims. The fact of the matter is he has autism, he is socially disconnected. We are not looking to blame his conduct on that.”

In his plea Tuesday, Abrahams admitted to taking over women’s webcams to capture naked images of them and then blackmailing them for more.

The criminal complaint identifies at least seven victims by initials only — some of whom, including Wolf, he knew personally. The college freshman computer scientist acknowledged infecting the computers with malware, watching his victims change their clothes and using the photographs to extract more images, according to the affidavit.

Abrahams said that an 18-year-old identified in the record as "CW" was the first person whose computer he hacked that he “knew personally.” He also admitted “to getting another victim identified as "M.M. #1" to go on Skype and take her clothes off at his direction,” according to a Sept. 19 affidavit by FBI Special Agent Julie Patton.

The FBI has been investigating Abrahams since March, when authorities learned he allegedly compromised victims’ computers to obtain nude photographs and in some cases videos of the victims by remotely operating their Web-enabled cameras.

The investigation was sparked after Wolf alerted authorities to a change in her Facebook password and a "sextortion" demand, say law enforcement sources.

The criminal complaint alleges that Abrahams changed Wolf's Twitter account photo to a half-naked image of her and then sent her two images of her naked that were taken inside her home by her webcams months before.

In each case, Abrahams is alleged to have contacted the victims using two AOL accounts he had taken over and sent the victims nude photos to show what he had obtained. Abrahams is said to have threatened to disclose the images and videos unless the women did one of three things: send nude photos, send a nude video or log onto Skype and do what he said for five minutes.

Abrahams allegedly threatened to transform "CW"'s "dream of being a model ... into a porn star” if the victim did not comply with his demands.

When FBI agents raided his Temecula home in June and seized computers and hardware, cellphones and hacking software, they found evidence to show he had gained unauthorized access to computers of victims in Southern California, Maryland, Ireland, Canada, Russia and Moldova.

According to court records, at least one of the victims is a minor. The victim identified as "MM#1" — a girl from Ireland who reluctantly complied with his orders for a Skype session in which she submitted to his demands — wrote, “Please remember I’m 17. Have a heart.”

Abrahams, according to the criminal complaint, responded: "I'll tell you this right now! I do NOT have a heart. However, I do stick to my deals. Also age doesn’t mean a thing to me!!!”

The girl then stripped during the Skype session. A Canadian woman also disrobed.

In his plea agreement, Abrahams acknowledged taking over 100 to 150 computers.

Wolf, who was Miss California Teen USA before winning the Miss Teen USA pageant in August, revealed that she received an anonymous email from someone claiming to have nude photos of her taken via the webcam on her computer.

Wolf also said the author tried to extort her to ensure that the photos were not made public.

[Wayne]

http://www.infopackets.com/news/securit ... en_usa.htm

A 19-year-old man has pleaded guilty to blackmailing women after hacking their webcams and taking compromising pictures. Miss Teen USA winner Cassidy Wolf was among Jared James Abrahams' victims.

According to prosecutors, Abrahams carried out his crimes over a two-year period, targeting women in the US and Europe. The youngest victim was just 16 years of age, with the others in their teens and early 20s. (Source: bbc.co.uk)

Abrahams used malicious software to infect the computers of his victims. This software allowed him to view the webcam video whenever the computer was switched on, even if the owner was not intentionally using the device.

He would then wait until the camera caught the woman undressing and take photographs or even record videos.

Webcam Hacker Makes Creepy Demands

Next, Abrahams would send the images or video to the victim and issue a blackmail demand. He said he would make the images public on social media sites unless the victim either sent him new photographs and / or videos of themselves, or spent five minutes in front of their webcams following his every demand.

It's not known how all of the women responded, though Abrahams has admitted that at least one women did perform on camera for him.

Among the victims was beauty pageant winner Cassidy Wolf. Abrahams seized control of her Twitter account and changed her account photo to one of her partially undressed before issuing his blackmail threats.

Beauty Queen Refuses to be Extorted

Wolf refused to comply with the demands and instead took the story public, appearing in TV interviews to highlight the threats. Some TV networks have called Abrahams' activities "sextortion."

After the FBI tracked him down, Abrahams admitted to having hijacked between 100 and 150 computers before blackmailing women in at least two dozen cases. Seven of the victims were specifically identified in prosecution cases (though only their initials were revealed in court).

Abrahams has plead guilty to four charges, including computer hacking and extortion. He faces up to 11 years in prison and could also be hit with a large fine.

Defense lawyers have pleaded for leniency, noting he made a full confession. They have also argued that he is autistic and "socially disconnected", though admit this is no excuse for his actions. (Source: latimes.com)

[Wayne]

British Man Convicted After Hacking the Webcams of Three Women

http://news.softpedia.com/news/British- ... 0370.shtml

30-year-old Andrew Meldrum of Crosslet Vale, Greenwich, London, has been found guilty of two counts of voyeurism and three counts of computer hacking. Authorities have accused him of spying on three women after hijacking their webcams.

Meldrum was arrested in November 2012, shortly after a 21-year-old woman contacted police after finding spying software installed on her computer. She told authorities that she suspected Meldrum because he had recently helped her with the computer.

The first victim told another woman, who also knew Meldrum, about the incident. The then 23-year-old also found spyware on her device and contacted the police. The third victim, aged 28, found similar software after being notified by the second woman. She also knew the suspect.

In the case of the third woman, the malicious software had resided on her computer for around 15 months before being discovered.

The suspect was released on bail until the trial that took place last week. He was charged in June 2013.

In addition to the charges of which he was found guilty, Meldrum was found not guilty on one count of theft and one count of voyeurism.

“This was a complex and protracted investigation that involved detailed examination and evaluation of computer files, where crucial evidence was secured,” commented DC Nick Pailthorpe, the investigating officer from Southwark Borough CID.

“I would like to thank all witnesses in this investigation but especially the three victims who gave evidence on matters that were clearly of a private, intimate and personal nature to them,” he added.

“I hope that they can take some consolation in the guilty verdict that sends out a clear message to anyone that this type of intrusion into a person's private life is not acceptable and the Metropolitan Police will support all victims and pursue all suspects.”

Cybercriminals often tap into users’ webcams, in some cases just for fun, while in others with the intent to later blackmail their victims. However, we recently learned of a number of cases in which the victims had known the perpetrator.

One of the most well-known cases is the one of Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf. She and other women were blackmailed by 19-year-old Jared James Abrahams, of Temecula, California. Abrahams is said to have personally known some of his victims, including Wolf.

The teen is said to have hacked into between 30 to 40 computers with the intention to record intimate photographs and videos of his victims.

[SlapHappy]

http://www.myfoxla.com/story/24996926/sextortion


"Sextortion" Scammer Gets 18 Months in Jail
Posted: Monday, March 17, 2014 3:06 PM EST Updated: Monday, March 17, 2014 3:10 PM EST
Posted by: Hunter Lowry, Assignment Editor - email

Like & follow us on Facebook here: FOX 11 Los Angeles

(FOX11/CNS) - A college student who perpetrated an online "sextortion" scheme targeting women and girls, including Miss Teen USA, was sentenced to 18 months behind bars today by a federal court judge in Orange County.

Jared James Abrahams of Temecula pleaded guilty in November to extortion. An FBI investigation last year revealed he had contacted multiple victims worldwide with threats of distributing revealing snapshots, obtained illegally, unless they yielded to his various sexually oriented demands.

Beginning last year and continuing through June of this year, the freshman computer science major gained access to computers, email accounts and the social media accounts of his victims to obtain photos of them, sometimes nude, that were taken from webcams, according to the plea agreement.Abrahams threatened to embarrass the victims, including the reigning

Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf, by posting nude photos of them online if they did not agree to have online video phone conversations with him or send him more lewd photos of themselves, according to court papers.

The defendant "extorted at least 12 young women in their late teens or early twenties in this manner," the plea agreement states.

The victims, who are identified only by their initials in the agreement, were particularly vulnerable because of their age, "and at least one of the victims, C.W., was vulnerable to defendant's threats because she was a model," according to the agreement.

The defendant used "hacking software" to control 100-150 computers of victims, according to the prosecution's statement of facts.

[SlapHappy]

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/03 ... 18-months/

Sextortionist who preyed on Miss Teen USA and 150 others sentenced to 18 months
by Lisa Vaas on March 19, 2014 | 4 Comments


One of the creeps who hijack webcams and blackmail victims into forking over nude photos, videos or on-air Skype performances is headed to federal prison.

This one was high-profile: he's the sextortionist who preyed on Miss Teen USA, Cassidy Wolf, and as many as 150 other women - some as young as 16 - in multiple countries.

Jared James Abrahams, 20, a Temecula college student in California who was studying computer science, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison on Monday.

The FBI arrested him in autumn 2013.

Abrahams pleaded guilty in November to one count of computer hacking and three counts of extortion, according to the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

As Wolf was unnerved to discover, the convicted extortionist was actually one of her high-school classmates, she told the Today show:

It's weird for me to be able to put a face to the person who did this to me and to know that it's somebody I went to high school with.

He was young, my age, and I just think it's sad that he chose to do this and now has kind of put himself in this big dilemma.

That was very compassionate of Ms. Wolf to say. Abrahams, for his part, wasn't compassionate when his victims begged to know why he was antagonizing them.

Webcam. Image courtesy of Shutterstock.According to the US attorney's office, Abrahams tended to target young women whom he knew.

He also branched out to other victims after hacking into their Facebook pages.

As the FBI reported in the criminal complaint, the nastyware that turned up in the search of his computers and the analysis of his electronic slime trail included evidence of keylogging, plus messages relating to the use of two remote-access tools (RATs) or Trojans - Blackshades and Darkcomet - which can be used to control victims' computers, including turning on a computer's camera.

Analysis turned up forum messages asking about using a fully undetectable (FUD) keylogger. Also, Abrahams asked for advice on getting victims to download it, given that he "[sucks] at social engineering."

After taking over his victims' email accounts, their social media accounts, and even their webcams, he was able to get nude photos.

Abrahams used those photos to extort his victims, threatening to publicly post still images or videos to the victims’ social media accounts unless they either sent more nude photos or videos or engaged in a Skype session with him and did what he said for five minutes.

He convinced two teens to undress during those Skype sessions.

According to the criminal complaint, his threats included transforming one victim's "dream of being a model ... into [the victim being] a pornstar" if she didn't comply with his demands.

Just to tie a slimy ribbon on his disgusting package, Abrahams sometimes signed off with smiley emoticons.

His sentence concludes the latest in a string of federal sextortion cases in Southern California. Abrahams actually got off with a fairly light sentence in comparison to the others.

Those earlier sextortion cases include a Glendale man who was sentenced in December to five years in prison and an Orange County man who received a six-year prison term in 2011.

This is what prosecutors had to say in a sentencing memo filed with the court:

As digital devices, email accounts, and social media accounts now contain the most intimate details of the public’s daily lives, the impact of this type of hacking and extortion becomes more pronounced, troubling, and far-reaching. In some cases, this type of criminal behavior can be life-changing for the victims - especially for vulnerable victims who may feel it is impossible to rebuild their tarnished reputations. Stated differently, individuals like [the] defendant have the ability to affect a person’s life in frightening ways by using the broad reach of the internet.

If you, or somebody you know, falls victim to a ratter or sextortionist, make sure it gets reported immediately to a parent, a trusted adult, or to law enforcement.

Giving these cretins what they want will only worsen the situation. Abrahams is a case in point: he told victims he'd delete nude photos if his victims complied, but he admittedly did nothing of the kind even if his victims did what he demanded.

As the US attorney pointed out, it's also wise to play it safe when posting images online or on any wireless communication, whether it's computer, phone, or tablet - most particularly if those images are ones that could be used to embarrass, threaten or sextort victims.