NJ Man Hired Online to Firebomb, Shoot at Homes Gets 13 Years in Prison

A 22-year-old New Jersey man has been sentenced to more than 13 years in prison for participating in a firebombing and a shooting at homes in Pennsylvania last year. Patrick McGovern-Allen was the subject of a Sept. 4, 2022 story here about the emergence of "violence-as-a-service" offerings, wher...

Experian Glitch Exposing Credit Files Lasted 47 Days

On Dec. 23, 2022, KrebsOnSecurity alerted big-three consumer credit reporting bureau Experian that identity thieves had worked out how to bypass its security and access any consumers full credit report -- armed with nothing more than a persons name, address, date of birth, and Social Security...

How Coinbase Phishers Steal One-Time Passwords

A recent phishing campaign targeting Coinbase users shows thieves are getting smarter about phishing one-time passwords OTPs needed to complete the login process. It also shows that phishers are attempting to sign up for new Coinbase accounts by the millions as part of an effort to identify email...

Malicious Domain in SolarWinds Hack Turned into ‘Killswitch’

A key malicious domain name used to control potentially thousands of computer systems compromised via the months-long breach at network monitoring software vendor SolarWinds was commandeered by security experts and used as a "killswitch" designed to turn the sprawling cybercrime operation against...

The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

Some of the worlds largest Internet firms have taken steps to crack down on disinformation spread by QAnon conspiracy theorists and the hate-filled anonymous message board 8chan. But according to a California-based security researcher, those seeking to de-platform these communities may have...

Phishing for Apples, Bobbing for Links

Anyone searching for a primer on how to spot clever phishing links need look no further than those targeting customers of Apple, whose brand by many measures remains among the most-targeted. Past stories here have examined how scammers working with organized gangs try to phish iCloud credentials...

Equifax Hackers Stole Info on 693,665 UK Residents

Equifax Inc. said today an investigation into information stolen in the epic data breach the company disclosed on Sept. 7 revealed that intruders took a file containing 15.2 million UK records. The company says it is now working to inform 693,665 U.K. consumers whose data was stolen in the attack...

Patch Tuesday, June 2025 Edition

Microsoft today released security updates to fix at least 67 vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and software. Redmond warns that one of the flaws is already under active attack, and that software blueprints showing how to exploit a pervasive Windows bug patched this month are now...

Who is Alleged Medibank Hacker Aleksandr Ermakov?

Authorities in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States this week levied financial sanctions against a Russian man accused of stealing data on nearly 10 million customers of the Australian health insurance giant Medibank. 33-year-old Aleksandr Ermakov allegedly stole and leaked the...

Alleged Extortioner of Psychotherapy Patients Faces Trial

Prosecutors in Finland this week commenced their criminal trial against Julius Kivimäki, a 26-year-old Finnish man charged with extorting a once popular and now-bankrupt online psychotherapy practice and thousands of its patients. In a 2,200-page report, Finnish authorities laid out how they...

U.S. Hacks QakBot, Quietly Removes Botnet Infections

The U.S. government today announced a coordinated crackdown against QakBot, a complex malware family used by multiple cybercrime groups to lay the groundwork for ransomware infections. The international law enforcement operation involved seizing control over the botnets online infrastructure, and...

Karma Catches Up to Global Phishing Service 16Shop

Youve probably never heard of "16Shop," but theres a good chance someone using it has tried to phish you. A 16Shop phishing page spoofing Apple and targeting Japanese users. Image: Akamai.com. The international police organization INTERPOL said last week it had shuttered the notorious 16Shop, a...

U.K. Cyber Thug “PlugwalkJoe” Gets 5 Years in Prison

Joseph James "PlugwalkJoe" OConnor, a 24-year-old from the United Kingdom who earned his 15 minutes of fame by participating in the July 2020 hack of Twitter, has been sentenced to five years in a U.S. prison. That may seem like harsh punishment for a brief and very public cyber joy ride. But...

U.S., U.K. Sanction 7 Men Tied to Trickbot Hacking Group

Authorities in the United States and United Kingdom today levied financial sanctions against seven men accused of operating "Trickbot," a cybercrime-as-a-service platform based in Russia that has enabled countless ransomware attacks and bank account takeovers since its debut in 2016. The U.S...

Identity Thieves Bypassed Experian Security to View Credit Reports

Identity thieves have been exploiting a glaring security weakness in the website of Experian, one of the big three consumer credit reporting bureaus. Normally, Experian requires that those seeking a copy of their credit report successfully answer several multiple choice questions about their...

Massive Losses Define Epidemic of ‘Pig Butchering’

U.S. state and federal investigators are being inundated with reports from people whove lost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in connection with a complex investment scam known as "pig butchering," wherein people are lured by flirtatious strangers online into investing in cryptocurren...

NY Man Pleads Guilty in $20 Million SIM Swap Theft

A 24-year-old New York man who bragged about helping to steal more than $20 million worth of cryptocurrency from a technology executive has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Nicholas Truglia was part of a group alleged to have stolen more than $100 million from cryptocurrency...

Ubiquiti Developer Charged With Extortion, Causing 2020 “Breach”

In January 2021, technology vendor Ubiquiti Inc. NYSE:UI disclosed that a breach at a third party cloud provider had exposed customer account credentials. In March, a Ubiquiti employee warned that the company had drastically understated the scope of the incident, and that the third-party cloud...

Bomb Threat, DDoS Purveyor Gets Eight Years

A 22-year-old North Carolina man has been sentenced to nearly eight years in prison for conducting bomb threats against thousands of schools in the U.S. and United Kingdom, running a service that launched distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks, and for possessing sexually explicit images of...

Promising Infusions of Cash, Fake Investor John Bernard Walked Away With $30M

September featured two stories on a phony tech investor named John Bernard, a pseudonym used by a convicted thief named John Clifton Davies whos fleeced dozens of technology companies out of an estimated $30 million with the promise of lucrative investments. Those stories prompted a flood of tips...

COVID-19 ‘Breach Bubble’ Waiting to Pop?

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it harder for banks to trace the source of payment card data stolen from smaller, hacked online merchants. On the plus side, months of quarantine have massively decreased demand for account information that thieves buy and use to create physical counterfeit credit...

When Security Takes a Backseat to Productivity

"We must care as much about securing our systems as we care about running them if we are to make the necessary revolutionary change." -CIA's Wikileaks Task Force. So ends a key section of a report the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency produced in the wake of a mammoth data breach in 2016 that led ...

How Cybercriminals are Weathering COVID-19

In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a boon to cybercriminals: With unprecedented numbers of people working from home and anxious for news about the virus outbreak, it's hard to imagine a more target-rich environment for phishers, scammers and malware purveyors. In addition, many crooks a...

Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years

Hundreds of millions of Facebook users had their account passwords stored in plain text and searchable by thousands of Facebook employees -- in some cases going back to 2012, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Facebook says an ongoing investigation has so far found no indication that employees have...

Detecting Cloned Cards at the ATM, Register

Much of the fraud involving counterfeit credit, ATM debit and retail gift cards relies on the ability of thieves to use cheap, widely available hardware to encode stolen data onto any card's magnetic stripe. But new research suggests retailers and ATM operators could reliably detect counterfeit...

Pakistan Arrests 21 in ‘Heartsender’ Malware Service

Authorities in Pakistan have arrested 21 individuals accused of operating "Heartsender ," a once popular spam and malware dissemination service that operated for more than a decade. The main clientele for HeartSender were organized crime groups that tried to trick victim companies into making...

Whistleblower: DOGE Siphoned NLRB Case Data

A security architect with the National Labor Relations Board NLRB alleges that employees from Elon Musk 's Department of Government Efficiency DOGE transferred gigabytes of sensitive data from agency case files in early March, using short-lived accounts configured to leave few traces of network...

How to Lose a Fortune with Just One Bad Click

Image: Shutterstock, iHaMoo. Adam Griffin is still in disbelief over how quickly he was robbed of nearly $500,000 in cryptocurrencies. A scammer called using a real Google phone number to warn his Gmail account was being hacked, sent email security alerts directly from google.com, and ultimately...

Recent ‘MFA Bombing’ Attacks Targeting Apple Users

Several Apple customers recently reported being targeted in elaborate phishing attacks that involve what appears to be a bug in Apples password reset feature. In this scenario, a targets Apple devices are forced to display dozens of system-level prompts that prevent the devices from being used...

Russian Hacker “Wazawaka” Indicted for Ransomware

A Russian man identified by KrebsOnSecurity in January 2022 as a prolific and vocal member of several top ransomware groups was the subject of two indictments unsealed by the Justice Department today. U.S. prosecutors say Mikhail Pavolovich Matveev, a.k.a. "Wazawaka" and "Boriselcin" worked with...

Many Public Salesforce Sites are Leaking Private Data

A shocking number of organizations -- including banks and healthcare providers -- are leaking private and sensitive information from their public Salesforce Community websites, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The data exposures all stem from a misconfiguration in Salesforce Community that allows an...

Finland’s Most-Wanted Hacker Nabbed in France

Julius "Zeekill" Kivimäki, a 25-year-old Finnish man charged with extorting a local online psychotherapy practice and leaking therapy notes for more than 22,000 patients online, was arrested this week in France. A notorious hacker convicted of perpetrating tens of thousands of cybercrimes, Kivimä...

Happy 13th Birthday, KrebsOnSecurity!

KrebsOnSecurity turns 13 years old today. Thats a crazy long time for an independent media outlet these days, but then again Im bound to keep doing this as long as they keep letting me. Heck, Ive been doing this so long I briefly forgot which birthday this was! Thanks to your readership and...

Experian, You Have Some Explaining to Do

Twice in the past month KrebsOnSecurity has heard from readers who had their accounts at big-three credit bureau Experian hacked and updated with a new email address that wasnt theirs. In both cases the readers used password managers to select strong, unique passwords for their Experian accounts...

Fintech Startup Offers $500 for Payroll Passwords

How much is your payroll data worth? Probably a lot more than you think. One financial startup thats targeting the gig worker market is offering up to $500 to anyone willing to hand over the payroll account username and password given to them by their employer, plus a regular payment for each mon...

Microsoft Uses Trademark Law to Disrupt Trickbot Botnet

Microsoft Corp. has executed a coordinated legal sneak attack in a bid to disrupt the malware-as-a-service botnet Trickbot, a global menace that has infected millions of computers and is used to spread ransomware. A court in Virginia granted Microsoft control over many Internet servers Trickbot...

Robocall Legal Advocate Leaks Customer Data

A California company that helps telemarketing firms avoid getting sued for violating a federal law that seeks to curb robocalls has leaked the phone numbers, email addresses and passwords of all its customers, as well as the mobile phone numbers and other data on people who have hired lawyers to ...

Sprint Exposed Customer Support Site to Web

Fresh on the heels of a disclosure that Microsoft Corp. leaked internal customer support data to the Internet, mobile provider Sprint has addressed a mix-up in which posts to a private customer support community were exposed to the Web. KrebsOnSecurity recently contacted Sprint to let the company...

Inside a Porn-Pimping Spam Botnet

For several months I've been poking at a decent-sized spam botnet that appears to be used mainly for promoting adult dating sites. Having hit a wall in my research, I decided it might be good to publish what I've unearthed so far to see if this dovetails with any other research out there. In late...

Russian FSB Counterintelligence Chief Gets 9 Years in Cybercrime Bribery Scheme

The head of counterintelligence for a division of the Russian Federal Security Service FSB was sentenced last week to nine years in a penal colony for accepting a USD $1.7 million bribe to ignore the activities of a prolific Russian cybercrime group that hacked thousands of e-commerce websites. T...

Who Stole 3.6M Tax Records from South Carolina?

For nearly a dozen years, residents of South Carolina have been kept in the dark by state and federal investigators over who was responsible for hacking into the states revenue department in 2012 and stealing tax and bank account information for 3.6 million people. The answer may no longer be a...

‘The Manipulaters’ Improve Phishing, Still Fail at Opsec

Roughly nine years ago, KrebsOnSecurity profiled a Pakistan-based cybercrime group called "The Manipulaters," a sprawling web hosting network of phishing and spam delivery platforms. In January 2024, The Manipulaters pleaded with this author to unpublish previous stories about their work, claimin...

Tourists Give Themselves Away by Looking Up. So Do Most Network Intruders.

In large metropolitan areas, tourists are often easy to spot because theyre far more inclined than locals to gaze upward at the surrounding skyscrapers. Security experts say this same tourist dynamic is a dead giveaway in virtually all computer intrusions that lead to devastating attacks like dat...

Six Charged in Mass Takedown of DDoS-for-Hire Sites

The U.S. Department of Justice DOJ today seized four-dozen domains that sold "booter" or "stresser" services -- businesses that make it easy and cheap for even non-technical users to launch powerful Distributed Denial of Service DDoS attacks designed knock targets offline. The DOJ also charged si...

Say Hello to Crazy Thin ‘Deep Insert’ ATM Skimmers

A number of financial institutions in and around New York City are dealing with a rash of super-thin "deep insert" skimming devices designed to fit inside the mouth of an ATMs card acceptance slot. The card skimmers are paired with tiny pinhole cameras that are cleverly disguised as part of the...

The Link Between AWM Proxy & the Glupteba Botnet

On December 7, 2021, Google announced it was suing two Russian men allegedly responsible for operating the Glupteba botnet, a global malware menace that has infected millions of computers over the past decade. That same day, AWM Proxy -- a 14-year-old anonymity service that rents hacked PCs to...

RaidForums Gets Raided, Alleged Admin Arrested

The U.S. Department of Justice DOJ said today it seized the website and user database for RaidForums, an extremely popular English-language cybercrime forum that sold access to more than 10 billion consumer records stolen in some of the worlds largest data breaches since 2015. The DOJ also charge...

Double-Your-Crypto Scams Share Crypto Scam Host

Online scams that try to separate the unwary from their cryptocurrency are a dime a dozen, but a great many seemingly disparate crypto scam websites tend to rely on the same dodgy infrastructure providers to remain online in the face of massive fraud and abuse complaints from their erstwhile...

A Closer Look at the LAPSUS$ Data Extortion Group

Microsoft and identity management platform Okta both this week disclosed breaches involving LAPSUS$, a relatively new cybercrime group that specializes in stealing data from big companies and threatening to publish it unless a ransom demand is paid. Heres a closer look at LAPSUS$, and some of the...

Happy 12th Birthday, KrebsOnSecurity.com!

KrebsOnSecurity.com celebrates its 12th anniversary today! Maybe "celebrate" is too indelicate a word for a year wracked by the global pandemics of COVID-19 and ransomware. Especially since stories about both have helped to grow the audience here tremendously in 2021. But this sites birthday also...