International investigation disrupts phishing-as-a-service platform LabHost

LabHost facilitated the phishing of users of hundreds of financial institutions worldwide for monthly subscription fee

Between Sunday 14 April and Wednesday 17 April a total of 70 addresses were searched across the world, resulting in the arrest of 37 suspects. This includes the arrest of 4 individuals in the United Kingdom linked to the running of the site, including the original developer of the service.

The LabHost platform, previously available on the open web, has been shut down.

This international investigation was led by the UK’s London Metropolitan Police, with the support of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) hosted at its headquarters.

Europol has supported this case since September 2023. An operational sprint was organised at its headquarters with all the countries involved so that the national investigators could identify and develop intelligence on the users and victims in their own countries. During the action phase, a Europol specialist supported the Dutch National Police with their enforcement actions.

Commoditising phishing attacks

Cybercrime-as-a-service has become a rapidly growing business model in the criminal landscape whereby threat actors rent or sell tools, expertise, or services to other cybercriminals to commit their attacks. While this model is well established with ransomware groups, it has also been adopted in other aspects of cybercrime, such as phishing attacks.

LabHost had become a significant tool for cybercriminals around the world. For a monthly subscription, the platform provided phishing kits, infrastructure for hosting pages, interactive functionality for directly engaging with victims, and campaign overview services.

The investigation uncovered at least 40 000 phishing domains linked to LabHost, which had some 10 000 users worldwide.

With a monthly fee averaging $249, LabHost would offer a range of illicit services which were customisable and could be deployed with a few clicks. Depending on the subscription, criminals were provided an escalating scope of targets from financial institutions, postal delivery services and telecommunication services providers, among others. Labhost offered a menu of over 170 fake websites providing convincing phishing pages for its users to choose from.

What made LabHost particularly destructive was its integrated campaign management tool named LabRat. This feature allowed cybercriminals deploying the attacks to monitor and control those attacks in real time. LabRat was designed to capture two-factor authentication codes and credentials, allowing the criminals to bypass enhanced security measures.

Easily accessible, yet still a crime

Platforms such as LabHost make cybercrime more easily accessible for unskilled hackers, significantly expanding the pool of threat actors.

Yet, however user-friendly the service portrays itself to be, its malicious use constitutes an illegal activity – and the penalties can be severe.

A vast amount of data gathered throughout the investigation is now in the possession of law enforcement. This data will be used to support ongoing international operational activities focused on targeting the malicious users of this phishing platform.

https://www.europol.europa. eu/media-press/newsroom/news/international-investigation-disrupts-phishing-service-platform-labhost

Report: Blinken Sitting On Staff Recommendations to Sanction Israeli Military Units Linked to Killings or Rapes

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is refusing to punish Israel for credible human rights abuses including the sexual torture and "rape by an object" of a 15-year-old boy in Israeli Border Police custody despite recommendations from staff at the State Department.

From ProPublica, "Blinken Is Sitting on Staff Recommendations to Sanction Israeli Military Units Linked to Killings or Rapes":

A special State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Antony Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses.

But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal in the face of growing international criticism of the Israeli military's conduct in Gaza, according to current and former State Department officials.

The incidents under review mostly took place in the West Bank and occurred before Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel. They include reports of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli Border Police; an incident in which a battalion gagged, handcuffed and left an elderly Palestinian American man for dead; and an allegation that interrogators tortured and raped a teenager who had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Recommendations for action against Israeli units were sent to Blinken in December, according to one person familiar with the memo. "They've been sitting in his briefcase since then," another official said.

[…] "If we had been applying Leahy effectively in Israel like we do in other countries, maybe you wouldn't have the IDF filming TikToks of their war crimes now because we have contributed to a culture of impunity," said Josh Paul, a former director in the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and a member of the vetting forum. Paul resigned in protest shortly after Israel began its bombing campaign of Gaza in October.

[…] Among the allegations reviewed by the committee was the January 2021 arrest of a 15-year old boy by Israeli Border Police. The teen was held for five days at the Al-Mascobiyya detention center on charges that he had thrown stones and Molotov cocktails at security forces. Citing an allegation shared by a Palestinian child welfare nonprofit, forum officials said there was credible information the teen had been forced to confess after he was "subjected to both physical and sexual torture, including rape by an object."

Two days after the State Department asked the Israeli government for information about what steps it had taken to hold the perpetrators accountable, Israeli police raided the nonprofit that had originally shared the allegation and later designated it a terrorist organization. The Israelis told State Department officials they had found no evidence of sexual assault or torture but reprimanded one of the teen's interrogators for kicking a chair.

I wonder what could be driving Blinken's bias?

Blinken has been sitting on recommendations from his own staff to punish Israeli soldiers credibly accused of rape all while publicly pushing the "Hamas mass rape" hoax to justify Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign.

This should be a major scandal but instead our Congress is focused on sending Israel billions of dollars to facilitate a genocide and outlawing criticism of Israel as "hate speech."

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64399

Thousands of everyday snacks that face being BANNED in multiple states because their ingredients are linked to cancer - including Flamin' Hot Cheetos, Lucky Charms and Gatorade

Legislation is being advanced in Democratic states over health concerns

Many of the additives targeted have already been outlawed in Europe

Bills advancing in multiple states could see 'thousands' of America's favorite candies, snacks and sodas banned in their current form.

Last October California approved a historic 'Skittles ban' that outlawed four food additives linked to cancer and fertility issues.

Now, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois have advanced similar measures, targeting a total of 13 additives that are already banned in some European countries over alleged health risks.

New Jersey and Missouri are also considering the bans. If passed, they would force companies to change their recipes or face legal action.

And experts say the moves could change the look, taste and texture of some Americans' favorite food items.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13314919/flamin-hot-cheetos-lucky-charms-gatorade-food-ban-cancer-link.html

Wolfgang Eggert – Jewish Doomsday Cult Controls West, Plots WW3

Twenty years ago German historian Wolfgang Eggert warned us that the Rothschilds belong to a fanatical doomsday cult that is planning to instigate a world war to cleanse the world of non-Satanists.

https://henrymakow.com/historian_demands_action_on_do.html

>>20743769

Proof of Kosher Cannibals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzE2sIJw524

Eating the Placenta - Rabbi Dov Linzer

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/163520?lang=bi

https://library.yctorah.org/2013/12/a-bridegroom-of-blood

"So what is it about the blood of circumcision? The parallel with the blood of the Pesach points to simple conclusion: the blood of circumcision is like the blood of a sacrifice. Or more to the point, the circumcision is a type of a sacrifice.It is this blood, this life-force, and yet not a human life, that has this salvific power, that saves Moshe's son and it is the parallel blood of the animal sacrifice that saves the Israelites in Egypt."

https://library.yctorah.org/2013/12/a-bridegroom-of-blood/

https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/67251/drinking-blood-during-milah

Drinking Human Blood - a 50/50 proposition as to 'permissibility', but one site herewith does note making dried drops of it for some use - now doubt 'medicinal'.

https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/91921/drinking-human-blood-case-permissibility

Eating the Foreskin - Confirmed as true. Unbelievably primitive, superstitious practices.

https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/75930/eating-the-foreskin-at-a-brit-milah

Amnesty: US-Backed Kurds in Syria Are Running Torture Prisons Responsible for ‘Mass Death’

The US is 'involved in most aspects of the detention system' that was set up in eastern Syria following the defeat of ISIS

US-backed Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria are responsible for torture and “mass death” due to inhumane conditions at detention facilities that were set up after the defeat of ISIS, Amnesty International said in a new report on Wednesday.

Amnesty said that the US is “involved in most aspects of the detention system,” which holds more than 56,000 people, including 30,000 children, 14,500 women, and 11,500 men.

The Kurdish authorities, officially known as the Autonomous Authorities of the North and East Syria Region, include the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US’s main partner in Syria. The majority of those in custody were detained in 2019 when ISIS lost the last significant piece of territory that it had.

Amnesty said many of the women are victims of human trafficking and forced marriage to ISIS members, and many detained boys and young men are victims of ISIS’s child recruitment. The report said other ISIS victims are being held in the facilities, including as many as hundreds of Yazidis.

Amnesty interviewed people who were held in the camps who detailed the torture they experienced, which included beatings, stress positions, and electric shocks. “I was given electric shocks. I was pregnant at the time. The [interrogator] knew, he told me: ‘I am going to force you to have a miscarriage’, and that’s what he did,” one woman said.

The Amnesty report detailed how the US has funded and supported the detention facilities. “The US-led coalition, with funding from the US Congress, has refurbished existing detention facilities, constructed new ones, and frequently visits them. The US Department of Defense has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the SDF and affiliated security forces,” Amnesty said.

Former detainees said that the “combination of physical abuse, inhumane conditions and lack of medical care caused outbreaks of disease and other health conditions, and led to the deaths of hundreds of people.”

Back in January 2022, there was a prison break at one of the facilities in Hasakah. A major battle ensued, and the US gave air support to SDF fighters on the ground. According to US Central Command, more than 420 suspected ISIS members and 120 SDF fighters were killed in the battle. A 17-year-old Australian boy who was in the prison at the time of the battle told Human Rights Watch that he estimated 15 to 20 children were killed. The boy said he was injured by a US Apache helicopter strike.

By backing the SDF, the US is able to maintain control of a section of eastern Syria that’s about one-third of the country’s territory. The US also has about 900 troops deployed in the area, which is where most of Syria’s oil and gas fields are located. The government in Damascus is strongly opposed to the US presence, making it an illegal military occupation.

https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/17/amnesty-us-backed-kurds-in-syria-are-running-torture-prisons-and-responsible-for-mass-death/

On Cam: Ukrainian Soldiers Bash Zelensky After Surrendering Before Russian Army In Donetsk

https://youtu.be/t70E1tc4p84

Government-Sponsored Agency the Global Disinformation Index is Censoring Anything Deemed “Harmful” Including Gender Critical Content

Government-sponsored agency the Global Disinformation Index is censoring journalism by causing publications to be starved of advertising if they publish anything deemed “harmful”, such as gender critical content. UnHerd‘s Freddie Sayers has written about the problem and his own experience of it. Here’s an excerpt.

“Our team re-reviewed the domain, the rating will not change as it continues to have anti-LGBTQI+ narratives… The site authors have been called out for being anti-trans. Kathleen Stock is acknowledged as a ‘prominent gender-critical’ feminist.”

This was part of an email sent to UnHerd at the start of January from an organisation called the Global Disinformation Index. It was its justification, handed down after a series of requests, for placing UnHerd on a so-called “dynamic exclusion list” of publications that supposedly promote “disinformation” and should therefore be boycotted by all advertisers.

It provided examples of the offending content: Kathleen Stock, whose columns are up for a National Press Award this week, Julie Bindel, a lifelong campaigner against violence against women, and Debbie Hayton, who is transgender. Apparently the GDI equates “gender-critical” beliefs, or maintaining that biological sex differences exist, with “disinformation” — despite the fact that those beliefs are specifically protected in British law and held by the majority of the population.

The verdicts of “ratings agencies” such as the GDI, within the complex machinery that serves online ads, are a little-understood mechanism for controlling the media conversation. In UnHerd’s case, the GDI verdict means that we only received between 2% and 6% of the ad revenue normally expected for an audience of our size. Meanwhile, neatly demonstrating the arbitrariness and subjectivity of these judgements, NewsGuard, a rival ratings agency, gives UnHerd a 92.5% trust rating, just ahead of the New York Times at 87.5%.

So, what are these ‘ratings agencies’ that could be the difference between life and death for a media company? How does their influence work? And who funds them? The answers are concerning and raise serious questions about the freedom of the press and the viability of a functioning democracy in the internet age. …

These companies act as invisible gatekeepers within the vast machinery of online advertising.

How this works is relatively straightforward: in UnHerd’s case, we contract with an advertising agency, which relies on a popular tech platform called Grapeshot, founded in the U.K. and since acquired by Larry Ellison’s Oracle, to automatically select appropriate websites for particular campaigns. Grapeshot in turn automatically uses the Global Disinformation Index to provide a feed of data about “brand safety” — and if GDI gives a website a poor score, very few ads will be served. …

The Global Disinformation Index was founded in the U.K. in 2018, with the stated objective of disrupting the business model of online disinformation by starving offending publications of funding. The GDI receives money from the U.K. Government (via the FCDO), the European Union, the German Foreign Office, George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and a body called Disinfo Cloud, which was created and funded by the U.S. State Department.

GDI founder Clare Melford explained in an interview at the LSE in 2021 how this expanded definition was more “useful”, as it allowed them to go beyond fact-checking to targeting anything on the internet that they deem “harmful” or “divisive”.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/17/government-sponsored-agency-the-global-disinformation-index-is-censoring-anything-deemed-harmful-including-gender-critical-content/