Hacking

Dark Overlord hacking crew publishes first batch of confidential 9/11 files

The Dark Overlord published the first batch of decryption keys for 650 confidential documents related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Dark Overlord hacking group claims to have stolen a huge trove of documents from the British insurance company Hiscox,

Hackers stole “hundreds of thousands of documents,” including tens of thousands files related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In April 2018, Hiscox acknowledged the data breach and confirmed that the hacked server “may have included information relating to up to 1,500 of Hiscox’s US-based commercial insurance policyholders.”

On December 31, 2018, the insurance firm confirmed that the stolen documents included information about the 9/11 events. 

“There has been some recent online coverage relating to Twitter posts about 9/11-related litigation and mentioning Hiscox. The online posts relate to an incident we reported in April 2018 (view here), when we were made aware that a US law firm that advised Hiscox, some of our commercial policyholders and other insurers, had experienced a data breach in which information was stolen. The law firm’s systems are not connected to Hiscox’s IT infrastructure and Hiscox’s own systems were unaffected by this incident.” reads a statement published by the company,

“One of the cases the law firm handled for Hiscox and other insurers related to subrogation litigation arising from the events of 9/11, and we believe that information relating to this was stolen during that breach,”

The group published a message on Pastebin announcing that it decided to offer for sale the documents even if the law firm paid to avoid publishing the documents. The Dark Overlord group decided to publish the document because the company contacted law enforcement.

“What’s the takeaway? We hacked Lloyds of London and Silverstein Properties. This release of 911 Litigation Documents is highly exclusive and only available from thedarkoverlord! For a limited time only, we’re leaking the first few documents as proof of our trove on the famous dark web hacker forum ‘KickAss’. For those of you who are most interested in acquiring the entire set of documents, which counts at over 18.000 documents, to include .doc, .pdf, .ppt, .xls, .tif, .msg, and many other interesting formats (or just to acquire the most highly secret and confidential documents), the good news for you is that we’ll be selling these documents for a limited time.” reads the post on Pastebin.

“If you’re a terrorist organisation such as ISIS/ISIL, Al-Qaeda, or a competing nation state of the USA such as China or Russia, you’re welcome to purchase our trove of documents.”

The group initially published screenshots of some of the stolen documents, and now decided to publish a first batch of files.

The analysis of the Bitcoin address used by The Dark Overlord’ revealed 16 transactions for a total of 3.27749466 BTC (more than $12,500). The hackers organized the files in five “layers” of encrypted documents and now likely released “layer 1″ keys.

There’s five layers to go. Layer 1, 2, 3, 4, and fine finally Layer 5. Each layer contains more secrets, more damaging materials, more SSI, more SCI, more government investigation materials, and generally just more truth.”
The Dark Overlord wrote in a 
Steemit post.

“Consider our motivations (money, specifically Bitcoin), we’re not inclined to leak the juiciest items until we’re paid in full. However, in the interest of public awareness and transparency, we’re officially announcing our tiered compensation plan.”“Each layer contains more secrets, more damaging materials, more SSI, more SCI, more government investigation materials, and generally just more truth,”

Journalists who viewed the documents said that insurance files contain lawsuit details of people affected by the 9/11 attacks and testimonies of airport security officials.

The Dark Overlord is a popular hacking group that targeted organizations in many industries, including finance, media and healthcare sectors.

On April 2017, The Dark Overlord’ stole and leaked online episodes from the forthcoming season of the TV show Orange Is The New Black.
The Dark Overlord demanded an unspecified sum to Netflix, but the company did not accept to pay the ransom so the hacker released the episodes online sharing a link to a downloadable torrent on The Pirate Bay.

In October 2017, the group broke into the celeb London Bridge Plastic Surgery clinic.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, The Dark Overload)

[adrotate banner=”5″] [adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

Russia-linked APT Laundry Bear linked to 2024 Dutch Police attack

A new Russia-linked APT group, tracked as Laundry Bear, has been linked to a Dutch…

5 hours ago

Nova Scotia Power confirms it was hit by ransomware attack but hasn’t paid the ransom

Nova Scotia Power confirms it was hit by a ransomware attack but hasn't paid the…

13 hours ago

Crooks stole over $200 million from crypto exchange Cetus Protocol

Cetus Protocol reported a $223 million crypto theft and is offering to drop legal action…

14 hours ago

Marlboro-Chesterfield Pathology data breach impacted 235,911 individuals

SafePay ransomware hit Marlboro-Chesterfield Pathology, stealing personal data of 235,000 people in a major breach.…

1 day ago

China-linked APT UNC5221 started exploiting Ivanti EPMM flaws shortly after their disclosure

China-linked APT exploit Ivanti EPMM flaws to target critical sectors across Europe, North America, and…

1 day ago

Fake software activation videos on TikTok spread Vidar, StealC

Crooks use TikTok videos with fake tips to trick users into running commands that install…

1 day ago