The Murky Ad-Tech World Powering Surveillance of US Military Personnel

A Florida data broker told a US senator it obtained sensitive data on US military members in Germany from a Lithuanian firm, which denies involvement—revealing the opaque nature of online ad surveillance...

Happy 15th Anniversary, KrebsOnSecurity!

Image: Shutterstock, Dreamansions. KrebsOnSecurity.com turns 15 years old today! Maybe it's indelicate to celebrate the birthday of a cybercrime blog that mostly publishes bad news, but happily many of 2024's most engrossing security stories were about bad things happening to bad guys. It's also ...

Top US Consumer Watchdog Has a Plan to Fight Predatory Data Brokers

A new proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would use a 54-year-old privacy law to impose new oversight of the data broker industry. But first, the agency must survive Elon Musk...

A week in security (November 25 – December 1)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Printer problems? Beware the bogus help Data broker exposes 600,000 sensitive files including background checks Medical testing company LifeLabs failed to protect customer data, report finds Explained: the Microsoft connected experiences controversy Spotify, Audibl...

Data broker exposes 600,000 sensitive files including background checks

A researcher has discovered a data broker had stored 644,869 PDF files in a publicly accessible cloud storage container. The 713.1 GB container an Amazon S3 bucket did not have password-protection, and the data was left unencrypted, so anybody who stumbled on them could read the files. The files...

Anyone Can Buy Data Tracking US Soldiers and Spies to Nuclear Vaults and Brothels in Germany

More than 3 billion phone coordinates collected by a US data broker expose the detailed movements of US military and intelligence workers in Germany—and the Pentagon is powerless to stop it...

A week in security (November 11 – November 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Malicious QR codes sent in the mail deliver malware 122 million people’s business contact info leaked by data broker Advertisers are pushing ad and pop-up blockers using old tricks Scammer robs homebuyers of life savings in $20 million theft spree Temu must respect...

122 million people’s business contact info leaked by data broker

A data broker has confirmed a business contact information database containing 132.8 million records has been leaked online. In February, 2024, a cybercriminal offered the records for sale on a data breach forum claiming the information came from pureincubation.com. Pure Incubation was founded in...

KrebsOnSecurity Threatened with Defamation Lawsuit Over Fake Radaris CEO

On March 8, 2024, KrebsOnSecurity published a deep dive on the consumer data broker Radaris, showing how the original owners are two men in Massachusetts who operated multiple Russian language dating services and affiliate programs, in addition to a dizzying array of people-search websites. The...

Identity Thief Lived as a Different Man for 33 Years

Plus: Microsoft scolded for a “cascade” of security failures, AI-generated lawyers send fake legal threats, a data broker quietly lobbies against US privacy legislation, and more...

Jeffrey Epstein’s Island Visitors Exposed by Data Broker

A WIRED investigation uncovered coordinates collected by a controversial data broker that reveal sensitive information about visitors to an island once owned by Epstein, the notorious sex offender...

Mozilla Drops Onerep After CEO Admits to Running People-Search Networks

The nonprofit organization that supports the Firefox web browser said today it is winding down its new partnership with Onerep, an identity protection service recently bundled with Firefox that offers to remove users from hundreds of people-search sites. The move comes just days after a report by...

Data brokers admit they’re selling information on precise location, kids, and reproductive healthcare

Information newly made available under California law has shed light on data broker practices, including exactly what categories of information they trade in. Any business that meets the definition of data broker must register with the California Privacy Protection Agency CPPA annually. The CPPA...

A Close Up Look at the Consumer Data Broker Radaris

If you live in the United States, the data broker Radaris likely knows a great deal about you, and they are happy to sell what they know to anyone. But how much do we know about Radaris? Publicly available data indicates that in addition to running a dizzying array of people-search websites, the...

FTC Bans InMarket for Selling Precise User Location Without Consent

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission FTC is continuing to clamp down on data brokers by prohibiting InMarket Media from selling or licensing precise location data. The settlement is part of allegations that the Texas-based company did not inform or seek consent from consumers before using their...

The Sad Truth of the FTC's Location Data Privacy Settlement

The FTC forced a data broker to stop selling “sensitive location data.” But most companies can avoid such scrutiny by doing the bare minimum, exposing the lack of protections Americans truly have...

Cisco Nexus 3000 Nexus Data Broker Denial of Service (CVE-2015-4296)

Nexus Data Broker NDB on Cisco Nexus 3000 devices with software 6.02A61 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service Java process restart via crafted connections to the Java application, aka Bug ID CSCut87006. This plugin only works with Tenable.ot. Please visit...

How the cops buy a "God view" of your location data, with Bennett Cyphers: Lock and Code S04E09

The list of people and organizations that are hungry for your location data--collected so routinely and packaged so conveniently that it can easily reveal where you live, where you work, where you shop, pray, eat, and relax--includes many of the usual suspects. Advertisers, obviously, want to sen...

Data broker sued for allegedly selling individuals' sensitive location data

The Federal Trade Commission FTC has sued data broker Kochava for allegedly selling information that would allow for individuals whereabouts to be traced to sensitive locations. The information included location data from hundreds of millions of phones, including sensitive locations that could be...

FTC Sues Data Broker

This is good news: The Federal Trade Commission FTC has sued Kochava, a large location data provider, for allegedly selling data that the FTC says can track people at reproductive health clinics and places of worship, according to an announcement from the agency. "Defendants violations are in...