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Newly unsealed grand jury documents revealed that two Sudanese nationals allegedly attempted to launch thousands of distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks on systems across the world. The documents allege that these hacks aimed to cause serious financial and technical harm to government entities and companies and even physical harm in some cases. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) unsealed charges against Ahmed Salah Yousif Omer and Alaa Salah Yusuuf Omer that resulted in federal grand jury indictments. The two are allegedly connected to more than 35,000 DDoS attacks against hundreds of organizations, websites and networks as part of a hacktivism scheme as part of the cybercrime group Anonymous Sudan and a for-profit cyberattack service. Even though Anonymous Sudan claimed to be an activist group, the pair also held some companies and entitys systems for ransom for rates as high as $1,700 per month. Both face indictments for their role in the coordinated cyberattacks including one count each of conspiracy to damage protected computers. Ahmed also faces three additional counts of damaging protected computers and could receive a statutory maximum sentence of life in federal prison, according to court records filed last June in the US Central District Court of California. The brothers activities date back to early 2023. The two used a distributed cloud attack tool (DCAT) referred to as Skynet Botnet in order to conduct destructive DDoS attacks and publicly claim credit for them, according to a DoJ statement. Ahmed posted a message on Anonymous Sudans Telegram channel, The United States must be prepared, it will be a very big attack, like what we did in Israel, we will do in the United States soon. One of the indictments listed 145 overt acts on organizations and entities in the US, the European Union, Israel, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Skynet Botnet attacks attempted to disrupt services and networks in airports, software networks and companies including Cloudflare, X, Paypal and Microsoft that caused outages for Outlook and OneDrive in June of last year. The attacks also targeted state and federal government agencies and websites including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Pentagon and the DoJ and even hospitals including one major attack on Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles causing a slowdown of health care services as patients were diverted to other hospitals. The hospital attack led to the hacking charges against Ahmed that carry potential life sentences. 3 hours+ and still holding, Ahmed posted on Telegram in February, they're trying desperately to fix it but to no avail Bomb our hospitals in Gaza, we shut down yours too, eye for eye... FBI special agents gathered evidence of the pairs illegal activities including logs showing that they sold access to Skynet Botnet to more than 100 customers to carry out attacks against various victims who worked with investigators including Cloudflare, Crowdstrike, Digital Ocean, Google, PayPal and others. Amazon Web Services (AWS) was one of Anonymous Sudans victims as part of the hacking-for-hire scheme, according to court records and an AWS statement. AWS security teams worked with FBI cybercrime investigators. Security teams discovered the attacks were coming from an array of cloud-based servers, many of which were hosted at a US server-hosting provider. The discovery helped the FBI determine that the Skynet Botnet attacks were coming from a DCAT instead of a botnet that forwarded the DDoS to its victims through cloud-based servers and open proxy resolvers. Perhaps the groups most brazen and dangerous attack took place in April of 2023 that targeted Israels rocket alert system called Red Alert. The mobile app provides real time updates for missile attacks and security threats. The DDoS attacks attempted to infiltrate some of Red Alerts Internet domains. Ahmed claimed responsibility for the Red Alert attacks on Telegram along with similar DDoS strikes on Israeli utilities and the Jerusalem Post news website. This groups attacks were callous and brazen the defendants went so far as to attack hospitals providing emergency and urgent care to patients, US Attorney Martin Estrada said in a released statement. My office is committed to safeguarding our nations infrastructure and the people who use it, and we will hold cyber criminals accountable for the grave harm they cause.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/two-sudanese-brothers-accused-of-launching-a-dangerous-series-of-ddos-attacks-215638291.html?src=rss
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Amazon is sunsetting the Kindle Oasis. This decision means there will be no models of the ereader remaining with physical buttons for turning pages. "Once current inventory of Kindle Oasis sells out online and in stores, we will not restock the device," Amazon rep Devon Corvasce told The Verge. "Today, all of our devices are touch-forward which is what our customers are comfortable with." The Oasis model debuted in 2016. Its lightweight, asymmetrical design for one-handed use was a standout, but the high price tag may have kept most people from really considering the product. If you are not most comfortable with a touch interface for your reading, there are still options for flipping pages via buttons on the market. The Kobo Libra Color is one of our favorites. Even with the Oasis becoming nothing but a mirage, the Kindle family isn't getting any smaller. Amazon announced several upgrades to the device line this week, including its first ever color ereader in the Kindle Colorsoft. We also got hands-on time with the latest Kindle Scribe and the Kindle Paperwhite has also received a refresh.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/the-kindle-oasis-will-be-discontinued-as-amazon-says-goodbye-to-page-turn-buttons-213538052.html?src=rss
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Last week, the California Coastal Commission rejected a plan for SpaceX to launch up to 50 rockets this year at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County. The company responded yesterday with a lawsuit, alleging that the state agency's denial was overreaching its authority and discriminating against its CEO. The Commission's goal is to protect California's coasts and beaches, as well as the animals living in them. The agency has control over private companies' requests to use the state coastline, but it can't deny activities by federal departments. The denied launch request was actually made by the US Space Force on behalf of SpaceX, asking that the company be allowed to launch 50 of its Falcon 9 rockets, up from 36. While the commissioners did raise concerns about SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's political screed and the spotty safety records at his companies during their review of the launch request, the assessment focused on the relationship between SpaceX and Space Force. The Space Force case is that "because it is a customer of and reliant on SpaceXs launches and satellite network, SpaceX launches are a federal agency activity," the Commission review stated. "However, this does not align with how federal agency activities are defined in the Coastal Zone Management Acts regulations or the manner in the Commission has historically implemented those regulations." The California Coastal Commission claimed that at least 80 percent of the SpaceX rockets contain payloads for Musk's Starlink company rather than payloads for government clients. The SpaceX suit filed with the Central District of California court is seeking an order to designate the launches as federal activity, which would cut the Commission's oversight out of its future launch plans.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex-is-suing-the-california-coastal-commission-for-not-letting-it-launch-more-rockets-204610537.html?src=rss
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