22-year-old citizen of France, Sebastien Raul, admitted in conspiracy with the SHINYHUNTERS group, which specializes in cyber abominations and extortion campaigns. The young man, known under the pseudonym Sezyo Kaizen, was arrested last year in Morocco. At the beginning of 2023, he was extradited to the United States for trial in a case of particularly serious crimes.
Mainly Raul and his accomplices engaged in the theft of corporate and client data from large companies. The information was then distributed in dark forums and in Telegram channels. According to the US Ministry of Justice, the total damage exceeds $6 million.
In the period from April 2020 to July 2021, the SHINYHUNTERS group published data from more than 60 organizations. As Raul pointed out in his admission, the files of one company were usually sold for several thousand dollars, and they were put up for sale multiple times. For example, the organization’s files under the codename “victim-4” were sold 13 times for $5,000 each, resulting in a total of $65,000.
In many cases, Shinyhunters blackmailed firms, demanding a ransom.
Raul and his accomplices utilized a wide range of tactics. For instance, they created phishing sites that imitated the login forms of legitimate online platforms. By gaining access to accounting data, the hackers infiltrated corporate networks and stole all available information. This information was carefully analyzed to discover new passwords and expand access to internal systems.
Once the stolen information became outdated, the attackers distributed it for free to enhance their reputation within the hacker community.
If they were able to hack into the firms’ cloud services, their computing power was utilized for cryptocurrency mining. Interestingly, the providers themselves issued accounts to the victims.
Currently, Raul is facing up to 27 years in prison for fraud and a minimum of two years for stealing confidential information.