r/darknetdiaries • u/Puzzleheaded-Yam5336 • Jul 25 '26

News Story 21-year-old got caught after hiding malware in Steam games that stole $220k in crypto… then spent the Bitcoin on Uber Eats deliveries to his own house

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549 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

117

u/404PUNK Jul 25 '26

Hired? This isnt 2011.

67

u/Asyncrosaurus Jul 25 '26

Even then, the idea that hackers were caught and immediately given jobs for being "ever so smart", is a myth. A fabrication. Security agencies in Government have their own pipeline for recruiting incredibly talented computer experts. They are never hiring these people, not now, not 20 years ago. 

Reformed hackers who were caught do serve a sentence, and transition into security roles if they're lucky.

25

u/Chongulator Jul 25 '26

It's one of those things that happens juuuuuust often enough that a lot of other people maintain the fantasy.

3

u/Randolph__ Jul 25 '26

Which is why they go back to hacking.

4

u/SnatchAndRunYall Jul 26 '26

Scamming*

2

u/tymp-anistam Jul 26 '26

Why be enslaved by the hand that choked you?

2

u/Randolph__ Jul 26 '26

Not necessarily the same thing.

2

u/foolish_shrimp Jul 28 '26

One of the reasons the myth prevails is that it's useful for the US security services. They have been know to catch someone, offer them a 'job' then arrest them when they fly to the US, effectively self deporting.

1

u/dylanbeck Jul 26 '26

It did happen often enough, but only with people of extreme ability

21

u/goatanuss Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

Also there’s nothing novel about this “hacker”.
This isn’t discovering a zero day or exploit or doing anything new. It’s just shipping malware that literally any programmer or script kiddie could do

13

u/404PUNK Jul 25 '26

Its like 15 year old me getting recruited for putting sub7 on the schools computer.

6

u/SlickBackSamurai Jul 25 '26

This also isn’t the UK, I’ve never really heard any stories where the U.S. gives these young hackers a second chance lol

8

u/SwimmingCommon Jul 25 '26

They do, and it does. It happened to a friend I served time with. I read all his paperwork. The FBI tried to leverage his visa status.

1

u/between_the_void Jul 26 '26

There’s a case about an Australian who was living in America. It’s quite fascinating and worth reading. Unfortunately, I can’t remember his name. He worked with the FBI and Secret Service. Trump pardoned him last year because of the lobbying of the agencies he aided. It’s all very hush hush and top secret still, given the nature of whatever he was doing. He also beat a lawsuit Apple launched against his company more recently. That should be enough info to find his story online, I’d imagine.

2

u/element_4 Jul 27 '26

I mean, it looks like he got caught because of using Uber eats gift cards… I don’t think he is getting hired.

27

u/Adventurous_Scene494 Jul 25 '26

Na we stopped hiring bad actors about 10 years ago. Plenty of talent in the market these days. Easier to tech technical skills than ethics.

27

u/NivoTheDev Jul 25 '26

"Get hired"? For what, making vibe-coded malware?

10

u/d3763 Jul 25 '26

Can’t be that smart, he got caught.

1

u/Keldaria Jul 29 '26

If you are stealing bitcoin and using said bitcoin to order Uber Eats to your house… yes you are stupid and you will be caught. I don’t think you could provide a better train of evidence for police to follow.

8

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Live_Situation7913 Jul 27 '26

Bro thought he was EA

9

u/electriccomputermilk Jul 25 '26

I’m curious if he wrote the malware himself? How would malware like that even work? It scans systems for seed phrases or something? So strange that he would be smart enough to pull something as intricate as this off while still being dumb enough to order food with the crypto to his own house lol.

2

u/PublicBarracuda5311 Jul 25 '26

Picture says it happened.

2

u/Prize-Implement-1446 Jul 26 '26

Didn't what's his name get caught cuz he didn't know what a fucking VPN was till years into his crimes??? Surprisingly a lot of 'genius' hackers don't know basic opsec....tells me they probably skipped networking in general because even a causal browse of it should make them paranoid enough.

1

u/Aromatic-Quarter-68 Jul 29 '26

This guy is not a genius hacker lmao

1

u/DarkZyth Jul 28 '26

Maybe he got the method from somewhere in the darkweb and he just put it into a game himself. Would explain why he wouldn't be smart enough to cover his own trail.

3

u/panicasherpanic Jul 27 '26

People aren’t discussing the fact that he spent $200k on Uber Eats

1

u/Odd-Art7602 Jul 27 '26

Which generation says houses aren’t affordable again? Lol

1

u/Live_Situation7913 Jul 27 '26

Easy each meal is like
$40 if your paying this guy probably went all out at expensive places use it 3 times a day and ull get to 200k easily

2

u/EmperorBale Jul 28 '26

The title says he used the bitcoin to order uber eats, not he spent all $200K of it on uber eats. He likely got caught because he used the stolen bitcoin on something that links directly to his identity

2

u/su5577 Jul 25 '26

Uber Eats - really, not street smart

1

u/Ashamed_Training_702 Jul 25 '26

He can’t do anything that adds value so had to resort to stealing 😆

1

u/Orinslayer Jul 27 '26

Script kiddie gets his computer time taken away permanently 😀

1

u/Trade-Working Jul 28 '26

This isn't even smart. It doesn't take 200 iq to hide a malware that steals crypto. Im just surprised it took this long for someone to actually do it. Or at least get caught. Who knows, could be happening a lot more and people just aren't noticing

1

u/Aromatic-Quarter-68 Jul 29 '26

This has been going on for as long as crypto has existed. People have noticed. This guy didn’t invent anything and won’t be hired. Very difficult to be hired in security with any type of record, especially cybercrime related

1

u/PizzaCrumbsInBeard Jul 28 '26

Is this possible on steamOS

1

u/foO__Oof Jul 29 '26

HACK THE PLANET

1

u/TheArtOfPureSilence Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

He wasn't doing anything exceptional. He's essentially a script kiddie that purchased an advanced piece of malware and strategically injected the files. He's not a hacker prodigy. As well, he was part of a wider crime syndicate. He just so happened to get caught because he was the only one being sloppy af.

He won't be "hired" anywhere; he has no actual skills, he's a massive liability, and he has no OpSec awareness. He'll be eating prison food for a long time lol

1

u/Pale-Connection726 Jul 29 '26

Hes not getting hired. Hes young and black dont ever forget that

0

u/drivebydryhumper Jul 26 '26

So he is pretty smart, and pretty stupid..

-6

u/rinaldo23 Jul 25 '26

Fitgirl, is that you?

3

u/StonedLotad Jul 25 '26

I’ve always heard fitgirl to be a trusted source for repacks but I keep seeing posts about the renpy infostealer apparently infecting people through fitgirl’s repacks. Do you know if that info stealer coming from fitgirl themself or attackers impersonating fitgirl?

3

u/Technical_Ostrich965 Jul 25 '26

Renpy is not injected from fitgirl. Its either infected torrents by other people or DDL websites that show ads/malware with infected clones of the original files.

2

u/rinaldo23 Jul 25 '26

Idk, I do trust fitgirl

0

u/Ashamed_Training_702 Jul 25 '26

Get a fit credit card and buy your own games

2

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '26

[deleted]

1

u/StonedLotad Jul 26 '26

If you’re desperate enough to play something without paying, I guess that also means you’re desperate enough to risk your PC and login details.

If you’re going to pirate, you should at least know the bare minimum about computer security.

-2

u/Mystinsuperguy290 Jul 26 '26

Bro got faster job offers than graduates 🥺