|
Vinny Troia
Vincenzo "Vinny" Troia is an American cybersecurity researcher who is known for investigating high profile data breaches and dark web hacking groups, and is the author "Hunting Cyber Criminals". Troia has published research about dark web hacking groups such as The Dark Overlord and Shiny Hunters. CareerTroia serves as owner and CEO of Night Lion Security, a cyber-security firm based in the US, and founded a threat intelligence firm named Shadowbyte.[1] In 2018, Troia found a data leak of nearly 340 million detailed records about individual people available on a publicly accessible server of Exactis.[2][3] In 2019, he found a data breach in People Data Labs where records of personal data, including email addresses, employers, locations, job titles, names, phone numbers and social media profiles of 1.2 billion people were exposed.[4][5] In July 2020, one of Troia's own websites, Data Viper, was hacked. The site contained over 8,200 databases from data breaches.[6][7][8] In August 2020, Troia wrote a report on the underground cybercrime economy built on the stealing of reselling of video game passwords.[9] The white paper outlines the process by which hackers make money by stealing and reselling Fortnite video game cosmetics, some making nearly a million dollars per year.[10] In November 2021, hacker Pompompurin, admin of the Dark Web data sharing forum BreachForums, publicly harassed Troia by hacking into the FBI email servers and sending hundreds of thousands of emails to people accusing him of being a part of The Dark Overlord hacking group.[11][12] In addition, Troia claimed that they had previously performed a DDoS attack one of Troia's websites and also hacked the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's blog to create a fake blog post about him.[13][14][15][16] Controversy & DisputeTroia was accused of making contradictory claims regarding a data breach at Astoria Company. While he reported that he had obtained data linked to Astoria, the company disputed these claims, suggesting inconsistencies in Troia’s statements about how the data was acquired.[17][18] Additionally, Troia has reported being targeted by a hacker known as “Pompompurin,” who allegedly harassed him, hacked his accounts, and spread misinformation in an effort to discredit him.[19][20] PublicationsTroia is the author of the book "Hunting Cyber Criminals: A Hacker’s Guide to Online Intelligence Gathering Tools and Techniques" (Wiley Books), which illustrates various investigative tools and techniques used to track down and investigate cybercriminals using Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) gathering tools and techniques.[21] The book provides a detailed account of Troia's investigation into cyber criminal hacking group The Dark Overlord.[22] Troia's book provides evidence and analysis to support claims that the masterminds behind The Dark Overlord cybercrime group are two teenagers living in Calgary, Canada. Evidence provided in the book, as well as a subsequent report published by Troia and Night Lion Security, attempts to link the members of The Dark Overlord hacking group to other "database focused" hacking groups such as ShinyHunters and GnosticPlayers.[23] References
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
