On Friday, London police arrested a 19-year-old hacker who allegedly targeted artists and their music recording by stealing their unreleased songs from their web archives and sold them for cryptocurrency on the dark web.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office in New York has received several complaints from management companies of recording artists, which led it to start the investigation. The suspect was arrested in Eastern England and the police hasn’t revealed his identity yet.
As cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are getting prevalent and new related developments are always coming along, hackers have also become more advanced and come with distinct ways to steal digital assets.
Phishing, Ponzi schemes, selling drugs and other illegal substances, etc. seem to become common for hackers and scammers as they have adopted new methodologies and practices to break security barriers to steal cryptocurrencies. These criminals have been targeting almost every digital asset and selling them on the dark web or other secretive channels.
In this particular case, the 19-year-old was arrested in Ipswich, a town in rural England, for breaking into artists’ website and stealing unreleased songs and albums. He later sold them for cryptocurrencies as reported by the City of London Police. Hackers have been reported stealing personal information and bank credentials but it might be the first time that hackers have targeted music artists for crypto profits.
The city of London Police detective Inspector Nick Court of Intellectual Property Crime Unit said in a statement:
“Today’s action marks a significant point in our investigation into the individuals responsible for stealing music and selling it on illegal streaming websites, worldwide.
This sort of crime causes significant financial loss to those who work so incredibly hard to produce, write and make music for their fans to enjoy.”
How this 19-year-old hacker broke into artists’ website is still unclear.
In the past few years, songs and music albums of many popular artists have been stolen and leaked online. In June, the renowned British band Radiohead divulged that a hacker stole unreleased music from singer Thom Yorke’s minidisc archive and then threatened to leak it online if a ransom of $150,000 wouldn’t be paid. Radiohead, in response to the hacker’s demand, released an album of demos and outtakes from 1997.
Cryptocurrencies are now being widely used for illicit activities because of their key feature of anonymity. As reported by blockchain security company CipherTrace, illicit activities associated with cryptocurrencies have been increasing steadily, resulting in losses of billions of dollars.
