The notorious and somewhat high-profile hacker going by the pseudonym “IntelBroker” has claimed to have successfully breached one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the world.
The hacker posted an advertisement on the notorious cybercrime forum, Breach Forums, offering to sell access to the compromised company’s sensitive data and systems for a staggering $20,000 in XMR (Monero) cryptocurrency.
According to the post, the unnamed cybersecurity firm boasts an annual revenue of $1.8 billion, making this breach a significant concern for the industry and its clients. IntelBroker claims that the access they are offering includes confidential and highly critical including the following:
- SSL Passkeys and SSL Certificates
- SMTP Access (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
- Confidential and critical logs packed with credentials
- PAuth Pointer Auth Access (potentially referring to ARM Pointer Authentication)
The hacker has stated that they will only provide further details upon contact and has requested interested parties to message them on the forum. In an attempt to establish credibility, IntelBroker has agreed to use a middleman or escrow service, such as Auto Escrow or one of the forum administrators “@Baphomet,” to facilitate the transaction.
Additionally, the hacker requires proof of funds from potential buyers and has limited the sale to “reputable members” of the forum, explicitly excluding “time wasters or default rank users.”
This worrisome development highlights the threat of cybercrime and the potential vulnerabilities of even the most prominent cybersecurity companies. If the claims made by IntelBroker are indeed true, the breach could have far-reaching consequences for the affected firm, its clients, and the wider cybersecurity scale.
Cybersecurity Firm Zscaler Initiates Investigations
While it is unclear which cybersecurity company is being targeted, Zscaler, a cloud security company headquartered in San Jose, California, is the first organization to launch investigations into IntelBroker’s claims to determine if the hackers have breached their systems.
According to the company’s Security Update page, investigations commenced on May 8, 2024, at 17:20:00 UTC. By 19:18:00 UTC, Zscaler concluded that they had found no evidence of the breach.
“Zscaler’s priority is our customer and production environment and we have not discovered any evidence of incident or compromise to these environments. We are continuing our investigation and closely monitoring the situation.”
Zscaler
IntelBroker’s Profile
Since the emergence of IntelBroker in October 2022, the hacker has conducted numerous high-profile data breaches, particularly targeting critical infrastructure in the United States. These include breaches at Space-Eyes, a Miami-based geospatial intelligence firm; Acuity Inc., a US Federal contractor headquartered in Reston, Virginia; Home Depot; Los Angeles International Airport; Staffing Giant Robert Half; partial Facebook Marketplace Database; DARPA-related accesses in General Electric breach; Weee! Grocery; and several others.
The hacker’s origins and affiliates are unknown; however, according to the United States government, IntelBroker is alleged to be the perpetrator behind one of the T-Mobile data breaches.
As of now, the identity of the targeted company remains undisclosed, and no official statement has been released addressing the alleged breach. Cybersecurity experts and law enforcement agencies are likely to investigate the matter thoroughly to verify the authenticity of the claims and assess the extent of the damage.
Nevertheless, the claims from the IntelBroker hacker expose the vulnerable state of cybersecurity. It also raises questions about the ability of cybersecurity firms to protect their own systems and data, as well as those of their clients, from determined attackers.
Stay tuned, as this is a developing story!
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