One of the world’s best-known cybercrime groups said on Sunday it had hijacked one of its chief rivals’ dark web site, bringing what it said was a long-simmering feud out into the open.
ShinyHunters, a digital extortion group known for aggressive data theft campaigns, said it broke into the dark web site of cybercrime gang cl0p on Friday after discovering a vulnerability in cl0p’s software and using it to establish wide-ranging control over the group’s infrastructure.
“We basically own them now,” ShinyHunters said in an online chat with Reuters.
Cl0p did not respond to repeated messages seeking comment. The group’s dark web site was unreachable when Reuters tried to visit it on Sunday, but on Saturday it displayed the words, “Domain Seized By ShinyHunters,” according to a screenshot preserved by cybercrime research platform eCrime.ch.
Two cybersecurity experts told Reuters the clash appeared to be genuine.
“Street beefs on the dark web are a real thing,” said Brandon Parsons, a threat intelligence manager with Minnesota-based Ascent Solutions.
Joe Roosen, the senior director of security research at Texas-based SpyCloud, said that he had never seen one cybercrime group take another head-on quite so openly. “This was a twist for sure,” he said. “It is rare I get to see these criminals fight each other.”
