UK Cyber Criminal Pleads Guilty To Selling Customer Credentials On The Dark Web
A cyber criminal who hacked into the online networks of at least 200 companies worldwide recently pleaded guilty to multiple offences in court.
Grant West, 25, who operated under the pseudonym ‘Courvoisier’, was detained in September 2017 following a two-year investigation by Scotland Yard. He was arrested on a train whilst logging on to his dark web marketplace account.
Southwark Crown Court heard that from at least 2015, West hacked into the online networks of Sainsburys, Asda, Apple, Uber, Ladbrokes, JustEat, Argos and others.
The data of thousands of customers was then stolen and used in spear-phishing scams to dupe customers into revealing their credit and debit card details, login credentials and email addresses.
The customer credentials were then sold on the dark web marketplace and used by other cyber criminals to make illegal purchases. Although hacking of the company websites was the major enabler of this cyber criminal activity, the spear-phishing emails ultimately led to customers unwittingly divulging their personal banking details which were then used to steal their money.
Duncan is a technology professional with over 20 years experience of working in various IT roles. He has a interest in cyber security, and has a wide range of other skills in radio, electronics and telecommunications.