Report: DOGE Staffer Linked to Cybercrime Ring

According to digital records, a prominent member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team has links to an alleged cybercrime organization.

A Wednesday (March 26) Reuters report alleges that Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old who goes by the alias “bigballs” online, provided security support to a group called “EGodly” that boasted about trafficking stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent.

PYMNTS reached out to DOGE for comment but has yet to receive a reply.

Coristine, who has access to official networks as part of the DOGE initiative aimed at reducing the size of the U.S. government, operated a company called DiamondCDN while he was still in high school. The company, which offered network services, was used by the EGodly, the report said.

According to reports, Musk once praised Coristine on his social media platform X, posting Coristine “is awesome.”

On Feb. 15, 2023, EGodly publicly thanked DiamondCDN in a post on the Telegram messaging app for providing protection against Distributed Denial of Service attacks and caching services, which allowed them to host and safeguard their website.

The Reuters report said digital records preserved by the internet intelligence firm DomainTools and the online cybersecurity tool Any.Run showed the EGodly website dataleak.fun “was tied to internet protocol addresses registered to DiamondCDN and other Coristine-owned entities between October 2022 and June 2023, and that some users attempting to access the site around that time would hit a DiamondCDN ‘Security check.’”

The duration of EGodly’s use of DiamondCDN and any potential payments is unclear.

While the report said that EGodly claimed on its Telegram channel that it hijacked phone numbers, infiltrated law enforcement accounts in America and Europe, and stole cryptocurrency, this information couldn’t be independently verified.

According to Reuters, EGodly’s Telegram channel has been inactive for about a year.

In addition, the group allegedly circulated the personal information of an FBI agent who was investigating it, including his phone number and images of his home. Reuters found video evidence of harassment targeting the agent.

Reuters contacted the FBI agent targeted by EGodly, who has since retired. The agent confirmed that the group was under investigation because of its connection to “swatting,” which is making hoax emergency calls intended to send armed officers to targeted addresses.

In the report, Nitin Natarajan, a director at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under President Joe Biden, expressed concern about Coristine’s involvement with such a group just two years before joining an organization that has extensive access to government networks.

Reuters attempted to contact Coristine, DOGE, the FBI and people who participated in, or interacted with, EGodly. Messages were not returned. CISA declined to comment.