OGUsers (OGU) is an

internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

that facilitates the discussion and hacking of social media accounts and online

usernames A user is a person who utilizes a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Other terms for username include login name, screenname (or screen name), account ...

. Established in 2017, the website is dedicated to the buying and selling of "rare" or " OG" online accounts that are considered valuable due to their name or age. The website acts as a platform for

cybercrime A cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network.Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. The computer may have been used in committing the ...

and the

harassment Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral ...

of individuals for access to their online accounts. Several high-profile incidents have been linked to the forum, most notably the

2020 Twitter account hijacking On July 15, 2020, between 20:00 and 22:00 UTC, reportedly 130 high-profile Twitter accounts were compromised by outside parties to promote a bitcoin scam. Twitter and other media sources confirmed that the perpetrators had gained access to Twi ...

Incidents

The site has been linked to various

SIM swap scam A SIM swap scam (also known as port-out scam, SIM splitting, Smishing and simjacking, SIM swapping) is a type of Credit card fraud#Account takeover, account takeover fraud that generally targets a weakness in Multi-factor authentication, two-facto ...

s, where discussion took place on

identity theft Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term ''identity theft'' was co ...

methods to change login information for online accounts. Graham Ivan Clark, regarded as the "mastermind" behind the

, was a former member of the forum. Two participants, Mason Sheppard and Nima Fazeli, acted as brokers in selling of Twitter handles on the website. In 2020, a man from

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

died from a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

from a swatting. An individual in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

was attempting to coerce the man for an online username by ulitilizing tactics of the site, with him later being sentenced to five years in prison.

Security breaches

The website was hacked in May 2019, with the administrator of

RaidForums RaidForums was an English-language black hat hacking internet forum active from 2015 until 2022. The website facilitated the discussion of a variety of hacking topics and was a notable distributor of various data breaches, hacking tools, and por ...

uploading the database of the website for anyone to access. In December 2020, the website was hacked again with user data being stolen. In April 2021, the information of 350,000 members of the forum was breached.

Reception

Brian Krebs Brian Krebs (born 1972) is an American journalist and investigative reporter. He is best known for his coverage of profit-seeking cybercriminals.Perlroth, Nicole.Reporting From the Web's Underbelly. ''The New York Times''. Retrieved February 28, ...

, an American journalist and

investigative reporter Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years res ...

known for the coverage of cybercriminals, has described the forum as a place "overrun with shady characters who are there mainly to rip off other members." In his report, he described how Facebook,

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

, and Twitter have took steps to crack down on users of the forum involved in the trafficking of hijacked accounts. Facebook told Krebs that the forum uses various tactics, such as harassment, intimidation, hacking,

coercion Coercion () is compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against a party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desi ...

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...

sextortion Sextortion (a portmanteau of ''sex'' and ''extortion'') employs non-physical forms of coercion to extort sexual favors from the victim. Sextortion refers to the broad category of sexual exploitation in which abuse of power is the means of coercion ...

, SIM swapping, and swatting.

References

{{Reflist Crime forums Internet forums

Incidents

Security breaches

Reception

See also

References