To settle a lawsuit, the city of Fullerton California “has agreed to pay $350,000 and take back its accusations of criminal computer hacking” against two local bloggers, reports the Orange County Register. The settlement ends what the newspaper calls “a contentious fight over censorship and freedom of speech.”The lawsuit accused Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee of stealing computerized personnel files from a Dropbox account to which the city had mistakenly given them access. Some of the files were later published online… Attorney Kelly Aviles, representing the bloggers, said she was pleased with the settlement, but the litigation could have been avoided. “The city shouldn’t have tried to blame their mistakes on journalists trying to cover the city,” Aviles said. “It was unbelievably wrong … those kind of people should never be in public office…” Under the terms of the deal, Aviles will be paid $230,000, while Ferguson and Curlee will receive $60,000 each. Additionally, the city must publish a public apology on the home page of its website, Aviles said. While no formal charges were brought against the bloggers, the city’s accusations of criminal conduct cost them friends and family members. She said Ferguson was fired from his job. “It was really traumatic for them,” Aviles said. In turn, the bloggers must return the remaining confidential recordswhich they don’t plan on publishing anyway, Aviles said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Click here to read full news..
Lapsus$: Oxford teen accused of being multi-millionaire cyber-criminal
The teenager, who is declared to have actually accumulated a $14m (₤ 10.6 m) fortune from hacking, has been called by competing hackers and also researchers.
City of London Cops state they have jailed seven young adults in regard to the gang but will certainly not claim if he is one.
The kid’s dad informed the BBC his family was concerned and also was attempting to maintain him far from his computer systems.
Under his on-line moniker “White” or “Breachbase” the teen, that is autistic, is said to be behind the prolific Lapsus$ cyberpunk staff, which is thought to be based in South America.
Lapsus$ is reasonably new but has actually become one of one of the most talked about and also been afraid hacker cyber-crime gangs, after successfully breaching significant firms like Microsoft and after that extoling it online.
The young adult, that can’t be named for lawful factors, participates in an unique academic school in Oxford.
City of London Cops said: “Seven individuals between the ages of 16 and 21 have actually been jailed in connection with an examination into a hacking team. They have all been launched under examination. Our inquiries continue to be ongoing.”
Playing on the internet games
The young boy’s papa told the BBC: “I had never found out about any of this till just recently. He’s never ever talked about any kind of hacking, yet he is great on computer systems and also invests a great deal of time on the computer system. I always assumed he was playing video games.”
‘ Doxxed’ online
” White” was outed – or “doxxed” – on a cyberpunk web site, after an evident befalling with business companions.
The hackers revealed his name, address, and social networks images.
They additionally posted a biography of his hacking career, saying: “After a couple of years his net worth accumulated to more than 300BTC [near $14m] … [he is] currently is associated with an aspirant ransomware group called ‘Lapsus$’, that has actually been extorting & ‘hacking’ a number of organisations.”
As initially reported by Bloomberg, cyber-security scientists have been tracking “White” for nearly a year and have linked him to Lapsus$ and also various other hacking cases.
” We have actually had his name since the center of in 2014 and also we identified him prior to the doxxing,” stated Allison Nixon, chief study policeman at cyber-security examination business Unit 221B.
” Device 221B working with [cyber-security company] Palo Alto after recognizing the star, saw him on his exploits throughout 2021, regularly sending out law enforcement a heads-up regarding the most up to date crimes.”
Mrs Nixon says scientists tracked him via a trail of task connected through a virtually unbroken stream of the boy’s on the internet accounts.
” We did it by seeing the post history of an account and also seeing older blog posts give contact information for the guy.”
Mrs Nixon states the trail was adhered to thanks to blunders “White” made in falling short to cover his tracks.
Lapsus$ staff
The Lapsus$ cyber-extortion team has gained prestige in a brief area of time thanks to its prominent targets and also energetic visibility on the messaging application Telegram. Its channel has expanded to 47,000 customers.