Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

LeakedSource Operator Pleads Guilty in Canada

Canadian authorities announced last week that Defiant Tech Inc., the company that ran LeakedSource, pleaded guilty to trafficking identity information and possession of property obtained through crime.

Canadian authorities announced last week that Defiant Tech Inc., the company that ran LeakedSource, pleaded guilty to trafficking identity information and possession of property obtained through crime.

According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Defiant Tech entered a guilty plea one year and a half after charges were brought as part of a law enforcement operation dubbed Project Adoration, which included assistance from the FBI and the Dutch National Police.

LeakedSource claimed to be a notification service that informed users if their credentials were compromised in a data breach. The service disclosed several major breaches, including ones affecting FriendFinder Networks, VerticalScope, Last.fm, LinkedIn, DailyMotion and Rambler.

However, unlike other breach notification services, such as Have I Been Pwned, LeakedSource also gave subscribers access to usernames, passwords (including in clear text), email addresses and IP addresses. LeakedSource services were often advertised on hacking forums and there was suspicion that its operators were actively looking to hack organizations whose data they could add to their database.

The LeakedSource database was said to store information on 3.1 billion accounts and the RCMP said Defiant Tech earned roughly CAD$247,000 (USD$184,000) from trafficking identity information.

Project Adoration was launched in 2016, when the RCMP learned that LeakedSource was hosted on servers located in Quebec. The service was shut down in January 2017 and its operator, 28-year-old Jordan Evan Bloom of Thornhill, Ontario, was charged in December 2017.

The latest information released by Canadian authorities does not mention Bloom, only Defiant Tech.

Related: Operator of Codeshop Cybercrime Marketplace Sentenced to Prison

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Related: IT Specialist Convicted on Cyber Hacking Charges Sentenced

Related: Leaked Credentials Service Shuts Down

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.