Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground by Poulsen Kevin

Author:Poulsen, Kevin [Poulsen, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

21

Master Splyntr

aking up one oor of a

lime-green o ce building

on the bank of the

Monongahela

River,

the

National Cyber Forensics and

Training Alliance was far

removed from the cloistered

secrecy

of

Washington’s

intelligence community, where

Mularski had cut his teeth.

Here, dozens of security

experts from banks and

technology companies worked

alongside students from nearby

Carnegie Mellon University in

a cluster of neat cubicles,

surrounded by a ring of o ces

that followed the smoked-glass

walls around the building. With

Aeron chairs and dry-erase

boards, the o ce had the feel

of one of the technology

companies that provided the

NCFTA with the bulk of its

funds. The FBI had made a few

changes before moving in,

transforming one o ce into an

electronic

communications

room,

packed

with

government-approved

computer and crypto gear to

securely communicate with

Washington.

In his o ce, Mularski looked

over a “linkchart” Crabb, the

postal inspector, had e-mailed

him—a massive organization

schematic

showing

the

disparate connections among

125 hard targets in the

underground. Mularski realized

he’d been going about it all

wrong by waiting for a crime,

then working to track it back

to the culprit. The criminals

weren’t hiding at all. They

were advertising their services

on the forums. That made them

vulnerable, in the same way

the New York and Chicago

Ma a’s

rituals

and strict

hierarchy had given the FBI a

roadmap to crack down on the

mob decades before.

All he had to do now was

join the carders.

He selected a forum from a

list provided by Crabb and

clicked on the account

registration link. Under Justice

Department

regulations,

Mularski could in ltrate the

forums without approval from

Washington,

provided

he

observed strict limits on his

activities. To maintain his

cover, he could post messages

to the forum bulletin boards,

but he couldn’t engage anyone

directly; he would be permitted

no

more

than

three

“substantive contacts” with any

other

forum

member.

Participating in crimes, or

making controlled buys from a

vendor, was out of the

question. It could be an

intelligence-gathering

operation only; he would be a

sponge,

soaking

up

information

about

his

adversaries.

As soon as he connected, he

was confronted with his rst

important strategic decision:

What would his hacker handle

be? Mularski went with his gut.

Inspired by the Saturday

morning

cartoon Teenage

Mutant Ninja Turtles, the agent

settled on the moniker of the

sewer-dwelling karate champs’

rodent sensei, a biped rat

called Master Splinter. For

uniqueness, and a hackerish

timbre, he spelled his surname

without major vowels.

So in July 2005, Master

Splyntr signed up for his rst

crime forum, CarderPortal,

laughing to himself over the

poetry in assuming the name

of an underground rat.

Mularski was soon playing the

carder

forums

like

a

chessboard, drawing on the

NCFTA’s stream of scam data

for his opening moves.

The center was plugged

directly into the antifraud

e orts at banks and e-

commerce sites, so when a new

criminal innovation showed

up, Mularski knew about it. He

posted about the schemes on

CarderPortal, portraying them

as his own inventions. The

experienced crooks marveled at

the

newcomer

who’d

independently reinvented their

newest tricks. And when the

scams

eventually

became

public in the press, the newbies

remembered they’d heard it

first from Master Splyntr.

In the meantime, the FBI

agent was soaking up the

history of the forums while

honing his prose to a ect the

cynical, profanity-laced style of

the underground.

After a few months, Mularski

faced the rst challenge to his

intelligence-gathering

operation. The initial crop of

forums that grew from the

detritus of Shadowcrew had

been wide open to new

members—spooked

by

Operation Firewall, many

scammers had adopted new

handles,

and

without

reputations to trade on there’d

been no way for carders to vet

one another. Now that was

changing. A new breed of

“vouched”

forums

was

emerging. The only way to get

on them was to win the

sponsorship of two existing

members. Constrained by the

Justice

Department’s

guidelines,

Mularski

had

deliberately avoided forming

direct relationships in the

underground. Who would

vouch for him?

Borrowing a page from a

Robert Ludlum novel, Mularski

decided Master Splyntr needed

a background legend that could

propel him into the new crime

boards.

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