Feds: Ransom Negotiator Helped Run ShinyHunters Site

U.S. federal investigators probing the ShinyHunters hacking group have identified executives at two ransomware negotiation firms who allegedly maintained close ties with the hackers — with at least one U.S.-based executive suspected of helping ShinyHunters operate a victim-pressure website. ShinyHunters, active since 2019, has claimed dozens of major breaches and extorted more than $70 million from victims this year alone. The group's current alleged leader, a teenage Jordanian hacker known as 'Rey,' was detained by Jordanian authorities in early October and is reportedly cooperating with the FBI. The investigation accelerated after ShinyHunters hacked fbijobs.gov in late September, stealing medical and psychological records, Social Security numbers, home addresses, and personnel details — prompting unusually swift law enforcement action. A key break came on September 15, when Dutch police arrested convicted hacker Pepijn van der Stap using flash-bang grenades while he was actively logged into his accounts, including Signal. Investigators were able to read his recent messages, which revealed frequent contact with ransomware negotiators in Canada and the United States — and allegedly led to uncovering a murder-for-hire plot. On October 9, KrebsOnSecurity reported the FBI arrested 54-year-old Canadian cybersecurity executive Edward Dubrovsky, who had recently published a book on cyber extortion advising companies to always engage with hackers. He faces charges of threatening to disclose stolen data and interfering with interstate commerce through extortion. Sources say Van der Stap's Signal messages showed that Dubrovsky and at least one U.S. consulting executive knew details about new ShinyHunters victims before those victims were even aware of their own breaches.