Teenaged DOGE State Department adviser did tech support for a cybercrime ring: report
New reporting from Reuters laid out how DOGE's teenaged senior adviser in the State Department "once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent."
Cybersecurity reporter Raphael Satter wrote that Edward Coristine's association with the EGodly cybercrime group came to light thanks to digital records reviewed by Reuters.
Coristine has become "the best-known member of DOGE," due to his unfortunate online moniker, "Big B----," and the fact that he holds such a lofty position, despite being just 19 years old. "Musk and others in MAGA have defended the youth of the DOGE team, claiming the whiz kids’ ages should not disqualify them from doing good work," according to The Daily Beast.
Satter wrote, "Beginning around 2022, while still in high school, Coristine ran a company called DiamondCDN, that provided network services...Among its users was a website run by a ring of cybercriminals operating under the name 'EGodly,' according to digital records preserved by the internet intelligence firm DomainTools and the online cybersecurity tool Any.Run."
ALSO READ: The new guy in charge of USAID doesn't believe in foreign aid
The Reuters report continued, "On Feb. 15, 2023, EGodly thanked Coristine's company for its assistance in a post on the Telegram messaging app," writing, "We extend our gratitude to our valued partners DiamondCDN for generously providing us with their amazing DDoS protection and caching systems, which allow us to securely host and safeguard our website."
Reuters said that neither Coristine nor The State Department would talk to them.
This isn't the first account of Coristine's questionable work history; he was reportedly fired from an internship after allegedly leaking internal information to competitors.
Bloomberg reported that Coristine boasted of his exploits via a Discord chat shortly after being fired, writing, "I had access to every single machine," and claiming that he could have wiped all of the company's servers if he'd wanted to.
