by This year has been a wild ride for cybercrime. From teenager hackers breaking into major networks to the discovery of billions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin hidden under floorboards, it’s clear that the world of cybercrime is constantly evolving.
One major player in the world of cybercrime this year was Carlos Guerrero, a Mexican businessman who admitted to selling hacking tools and signal jammers for both profit and personal use. He was charged by the Justice Department for organizing the sale of hacking tools to Mexican politicians and using those same tools to eavesdrop on the phone calls of an American adversary.
In September, a 17-year-old suspect was charged with multiple counts of computer abuse and bail violations in connection with high-profile breaches at Rockstar Games and Uber. The hacker, known as Lapsus$, caused Uber to shut down a number of its internal tools and removed the hacker from its network.
The Lapsus$ gang gained notoriety in 2022 after claiming a number of well-known victims, including Okta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Samsung. However, some members of the group were detained in March of this year.
Paige Thompson, a former engineer at Amazon’s cloud business, was found guilty of a data breach that exposed the private information and money of 100 million CapitalOne clients in 2019. The breach, which affected one million Canadians and resulted in the theft of credit scores, restrictions, and balances, was one of the largest bank robberies in American history.
Finally, the mystery of the lost billions from the infamous dark web marketplace Silk Road was solved in November when authorities discovered $3.36 billion in bitcoin hidden in a popcorn can under a bathroom closet floor. The hacker, James Zhong, agreed to surrender the bitcoin as well as $600,000 in cash and other precious metals.
Overall, 2022 has been a year full of high-profile arrests and jaw-dropping cybercrime incidents. It’s clear that the world of cybercrime is constantly evolving, and it will be interesting to see what happens in the world of cybercrime in the coming year.
