The U.S. DOGE adviser, Edward Coristine, has been connected to a group of cybercriminals with a track record of dealing in compromised data and cyberstalking an FBI agent.
Coristine, 19, is one of the most prominent members of the recently formed DOGE. He is among the DOGE team that has been given sweeping access to official networks in an attempt to radically downsize the U.S. government.
Musk recently complimented the teen on his social media platform, X, declaring last month that Coristine is awesome.
In 2022, Coristine, still in high school, started his company, DiamondCDN, offering network services to several clients. One of his company’s users was a website, dataleak.fun, operated by a cybercriminal gang under the name “EGodly,” according to the internet intelligence firm DomainTools and the online cybersecurity tool Any.Run.
According to a Reuters analysis of internet protocol addresses, other businesses he owned from October 2022 to June 2023 were connected to the EGodly website. At the time, some website users were redirected to a DiamondCDN “Security Check.”
Neither Coristine nor DOGE responded to requests for comment. In addition, the State Department, where the DOGE staffer’s name appears as a senior adviser, has yet to issue a statement. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the U.S. government body responsible for cybersecurity and infrastructure, has also remained silent.
Nitin Natarajan, the former deputy director of CISA, only argued that it’s concerning that someone who’s had access to multiple federal agencies provided support for the cybercriminal ring EGodly. He even claimed that his ties to the group are not in the distant past, and the recency of his association with the group is deeply troubling.
EGodly claimed it had stolen phone numbers by accessing unidentified law enforcement email accounts in Latin America and Eastern Europe, and even siphoned crypto in 2023.
That same year, the group revealed the personal details of an FBI agent who was allegedly investigating them. They shared his phone number, photos of his house, and more private information on Telegram.
EGodly also shared an audio recording of a prank call made to the agent’s phone and a video shot from inside a car driving past the agent’s house in Wilmington, Delaware.
Though the compromised phone number attacks have yet to be confirmed, Reuters did confirm the validity of the video shot of the agent’s house. They even followed up with the ex-FBI agent harassed by the group.
When questioned about EGodly’s actions, the former FBI agent only told Reuters that the group was under investigation for swatting at the time, but did not reveal any more details. He refused to say anything about the harassment or whether the criminal gang was still under investigation. He only commented, “These are bad folks. They’re not a pleasant group.”
A cybercrime researcher was also harassed by the group but requested anonymity, fearing retaliation.
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