Posted on 10/25/2019 4:06:36 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
The 20-something couple with a history of small-time scams had inadvertently hacked the world’s most powerful nation for a five-figure ransom at a time of high anxiety over national security on Inauguration Day.
The Romanians had launched hundreds of thousands of emails embedded with ransomware in an attachment disguised as an invoice, authorities said. The list of email addresses they bought included, by chance, the Washington, D.C., police department. A recipient there apparently took the bait, opening the attachment that locked up the street-camera system. Only a payment could produce the key.
Ms. Cismaru sent a message to the Journal in June asking, “How much are you willing to pay for this interview?”
Leaving fingerprints On Jan. 9, 2017, Mr. Isvanca ordered food online from Andy’s Pizza in Bucharest. That day, using the same email address, he hacked the Washington street cameras, Ms. Cismaru later told prosecutors.
In Washington, ransomware disabled 126 of the 186 computers linked to the cameras, and Secret Service and police began trying to regain control.
The couple “ended up being the mostly unlucky hackers after being the luckiest,” said a Romanian investigator who joined the dragnet.
U.S. prosecutors determined Ms. Cismaru played a minor role. In January, she was released for time served. In March, she was deported.
Mr. Isvanca is on trial in Romania on earlier charges involving credit-card theft. He faces extradition to the U.S., where charges in the Washington case carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Bookmarklets - Get around paywalls, Fancy text for FB, Legal hacking tricks made easy!, Codepen, April 23, 2019, posted by Bon Mots. It has worked really well for me. I’ll get a Twitter page with multiple Tweets and usually one links me to the full article. Kudos to Bon Mots for posting this solution back in April.
Here’s the direct link: Bookmarklets. Drag the “Paywall Killer” to your bookmark bar. I renamed mine simply “Paywall.”
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3744210/posts
https://codepen.io/bookmarklets/pen/NobJbq
So NOT GUILTY that it ain’t even funny.
Clearly, she is in good shape!
Andy’s pizza in Bucharest? Seriously?
Still odd this would happen just before the inauguration...
From comments at WSJ:
They (and all hackers) are pirates! I like what the Brits did to pirates: gibbets and short ropes. Maybe we could issue Letters of Marque and let the holders of the letter keep all the assets and reward money for stopping these characters.
It’s really nice to get articles here that cannot be opened without buying a subscription.............
Did you use the workarounds in #2?
Pizza is popular everywhere, and sometimes sells better with some American cultural references.
CC
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