One of the premiere forums used by cyber criminals has been breached and a database of over 2,000 members leaked, according to reports from the Russian Website Lifenews.
Maza.la, a closed forum that is frequented by high profile members of the cyber underground was allegedly attacked on February 18 by members of a rival forum, Direct Connection, and its members list and content was exposed, according to the Lifenew report, dated February 25. The Web site was unreachable on Monday and Whois records suggest that the domain registration was updated on February 22, four days after the alleged hack.
Among the participants of the forum were active spammers, carders and other cyber criminals, as well as high profile crooks who have been taken into custody. They included Vladislav Kibervor Horohorin, aka Badb, who was arrested in France in August and charged with his role in a coordinated $9.5m attack on card processing firm RBS Worldpay. Others include spammer Peter Lavash, aka “Severa,” whose believed to be a leading producer of spamming tools, Trojans and other malware.
Underground hacking forums often attract a wide range of criminals to a single Web site and providing the promise of anonymity and business connections. However, they can serve as honeypots for law enforcement. Notably, in the FBI’s Operation Firewall, members of the protected Shadowcrew carding forum were monitored and eventually arrested after the FBI was able to infiltrate the site, identify its members and monitor their communications.
