A Single Cloud Compromise Can Feed an Army of AI Sex Bots

Organizations that get relieved of credentials to their cloud environments can quickly find themselves part of a disturbing new trend: Cybercriminals using stolen cloud credentials to operate and resell sexualized AI-powered chat services. Researchers say these illicit chat bots, which use custom...

NationalPublicData.com Hack Exposes a Nation’s Data

A great many readers this month reported receiving alerts that their Social Security Number, name, address and other personal information were exposed in a breach at a little-known but aptly-named consumer data broker called NationalPublicData.com. This post examines what we know about a breach...

Crooks Bypassed Google’s Email Verification to Create Workspace Accounts, Access 3rd-Party Services

Google says it recently fixed an authentication weakness that allowed crooks to circumvent the email verification required to create a Google Workspace account, and leverage that to impersonate a domain holder at third-party services that allow logins through Googles "Sign in with Google" feature...

Using Google Search to Find Software Can Be Risky

Google continues to struggle with cybercriminals running malicious ads on its search platform to trick people into downloading booby-trapped copies of popular free software applications. The malicious ads, which appear above organic search results and often precede links to legitimate sources of...

Russian Cybersecurity Executive Arrested for Alleged Role in 2012 Megahacks

Nikita Kislitsin, formerly the head of network security for one of Russias top cybersecurity firms, was arrested last week in Kazakhstan in response to 10-year-old hacking charges from the U.S. Department of Justice. Experts say Kislitsins prosecution could soon put the Kazakhstan government in a...

Giving a Face to the Malware Proxy Service ‘Faceless’

For the past seven years, a malware-based proxy service known as "Faceless" has sold anonymity to countless cybercriminals. For less than a dollar per day, Faceless customers can route their malicious traffic through tens of thousands of compromised systems advertised on the service. In this post...

German Police Raid DDoS-Friendly Host ‘FlyHosting’

Authorities in Germany this week seized Internet servers that powered FlyHosting, a dark web offering that catered to cybercriminals operating DDoS-for-hire services, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. FlyHosting first advertised on cybercrime forums in November 2022, saying it was a Germany-based...

Two U.S. Men Charged in 2022 Hacking of DEA Portal

Two U.S. men have been charged with hacking into a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency DEA online portal that taps into 16 different federal law enforcement databases. Both are alleged to be part of a larger criminal organization that specializes in using fake emergency data requests from compromised...

PayPal Phishing Scam Uses Invoices Sent Via PayPal

Scammers are using invoices sent through PayPal.com to trick recipients into calling a number to dispute a pending charge. The missives -- which come from Paypal.com and include a link at Paypal.com that displays an invoice for the supposed transaction -- state that the users account is about to ...

Scammers Sent Uber to Take Elderly Lady to the Bank

Email scammers sent an Uber to the home of an 80-year-old woman who responded to a well-timed email scam, in a bid to make sure she went to the bank and wired money to the fraudsters. In this case, the woman figured out she was being scammed before embarking for the bank, but her story is a...

Pro-Ukraine ‘Protestware’ Pushes Antiwar Ads, Geo-Targeted Malware

Researchers are tracking a number of open-source "protestware" projects on GitHub that have recently altered their code to display "Stand with Ukraine" messages for users, or basic facts about the carnage in Ukraine. The group also is tracking several code packages that were recently modified to...

Russian Govt. Continues Carding Shop Crackdown

Russian authorities have arrested six men accused of operating some of the most active online bazaars for selling stolen payment card data. The crackdown -- the second closure of major card fraud shops by Russian authorities in as many weeks -- comes closely behind Russias arrest of 14 alleged...

Scary Fraud Ensues When ID Theft & Usury Collide

Whats worse than finding out that identity thieves took out a 546 percent interest payday loan in your name? How about a 900 percent interest loan? Or how about not learning of the fraudulent loan until it gets handed off to collection agents? One readers nightmare experience spotlights what can...

FCC Proposal Targets SIM Swapping, Port-Out Fraud

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission FCC is asking for feedback on new proposed rules to crack down on SIM swapping and number port-out fraud, increasingly prevalent scams in which identity thieves hijack a targets mobile phone number and use that to wrest control over the victims online...

Omitting the “o” in .com Could Be Costly

Take care when typing a domain name into a browser address bar, because it's far too easy to fat-finger a key and wind up somewhere you don't want to go. For example, if you try to visit some of the most popular destinations on the Web but omit the "o" in .com and type .cm instead, there's a good...

Krebs Given ISSA’s ‘President’s Award’

KrebsOnSecurity was honored this month with the 2017 President's Award for Public Service from the Information Systems Security Association, a nonprofit organization for cybersecurity professionals. The award recognizes an individual's contribution to the information security profession in the ar...

Who Runs the Ransomware Group ‘The Gentlemen?’

A cybercrime group known as The Gentlemen has emerged as the second most active ransomware gang by victim count, rapidly attracting a talented pool of hackers through an aggressive recruitment strategy that promises affiliates 90 percent of any ransom paid by victims. This post examines clues...

Alleged Kimwolf Botmaster ‘Dort’ Arrested, Charged in U.S. and Canada

Canadian authorities on Wednesday arrested a 23-year-old Ottawa man on suspicion of building and operating Kimwolf , a fast spreading Internet-of-Things botnet that enslaved millions of devices for use in a series of massive distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks over the past six months...

The Kimwolf Botnet is Stalking Your Local Network

The story you are reading is a series of scoops nestled inside a far more urgent Internet-wide security advisory. The vulnerability at issue has been exploited for months already, and it's time for a broader awareness of the threat. The short version is that everything you thought you knew about...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, December 2025 Edition

Microsoft today pushed updates to fix at least 56 security flaws in its Windows operating systems and supported software. This final Patch Tuesday of 2025 tackles one zero-day bug that is already being exploited, as well as two publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. Despite releasing a...

ShinyHunters Wage Broad Corporate Extortion Spree

A cybercriminal group that used voice phishing attacks to siphon more than a billion records from Salesforce customers earlier this year has launched a website that threatens to publish data stolen from dozens of Fortune 500 firms if they refuse to pay a ransom. The group also claimed...

Bulletproof Host Stark Industries Evades EU Sanctions

In May 2025, the European Union levied financial sanctions on the owners ofStark Industries Solutions Ltd. , a bulletproof hosting provider that materialized two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine and quickly became a top source of Kremlin-linked cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns. But ne...

18 Popular Code Packages Hacked, Rigged to Steal Crypto

At least 18 popular JavaScript code packages that are collectively downloaded more than two billion times each week were briefly compromised with malicious software today, after a developer involved in maintaining the projects was phished. The attack appears to have been quickly contained and was...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, August 2025 Edition

Microsoft today released updates to fix more than 100 security flaws in its Windows operating systems and other software. At least 13 of the bugs received Microsoft's most-dire "critical" rating, meaning they could be abused by malware or malcontents to gain remote access to a Windows system with...

Trump Revenge Tour Targets Cyber Leaders, Elections

President Trump last week revoked security clearances for Chris Krebs , the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA who was fired by Trump after declaring the 2020 election the most secure in U.S. history. The White House memo, which also suspended clearances...

China-based SMS Phishing Triad Pivots to Banks

China-based purveyors of SMS phishing kits are enjoying remarkable success converting phished payment card data into mobile wallets from Apple and Google. Until recently, the so-called "Smishing Triad " mainly impersonated toll road operators and shipping companies. But experts say these groups a...

How Each Pillar of the 1st Amendment is Under Attack

" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." -U.S. Constitution,...

Teen on Musk’s DOGE Team Graduated from ‘The Com’

Wired reported this week that a 19-year-old working for Elon Musk 's so-called Department of Government Efficiency DOGE was given access to sensitive US government systems even though his past association with cybercrime communities should have precluded him from gaining the necessary security...

Experts Flag Security, Privacy Risks in DeepSeek AI App

New mobile apps from the Chinese artificial intelligence AI company DeepSeek have remained among the top three "free" downloads for Apple and Google devices since their debut on Jan. 25, 2025. But experts caution that many of DeepSeek's design choices -- such as using hard-coded encryption keys,...

Booking.com Phishers May Leave You With Reservations

A number of cybercriminal innovations are making it easier for scammers to cash in on your upcoming travel plans. This story examines a recent spear-phishing campaign that ensued when a California hotel had its booking.com credentials stolen. We'll also explore an array of cybercrime services aim...

National Public Data Published Its Own Passwords

New details are emerging about a breach at National Public Data NPD, a consumer data broker that recently spilled hundreds of millions of Americans Social Security Numbers, addresses, and phone numbers online. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that another NPD data broker which shares access to the sam...

Researchers: Weak Security Defaults Enabled Squarespace Domains Hijacks

At least a dozen organizations with domain names at domain registrar Squarespace saw their websites hijacked last week. Squarespace bought all assets of Google Domains a year ago, but many customers still havent set up their new accounts. Experts say malicious hackers learned they could commandee...

Thread Hijacking: Phishes That Prey on Your Curiosity

Thread hijacking attacks. They happen when someone you know has their email account compromised, and you are suddenly dropped into an existing conversation between the sender and someone else. These missives draw on the recipients natural curiosity about being copied on a private discussion, whic...

Here’s Some Bitcoin: Oh, and You’ve Been Served!

A California man who lost $100,000 in a 2021 SIM-swapping attack is suing the unknown holder of a cryptocurrency wallet that harbors his stolen funds. The case is thought to be the first in which a federal court has recognized the use of information included in a bitcoin transaction -- such as a...

Tech CEO Sentenced to 5 Years in IP Address Scheme

Amir Golestan, the 40-year-old CEO of the Charleston, S.C. based technology company Micfo LLC, has been sentenced to five years in prison for wire fraud. Golestans sentencing comes nearly two years after he pleaded guilty to using an elaborate network of phony companies to secure more than 735,00...

Feds Take Down 13 More DDoS-for-Hire Services

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI this week seized 13 domain names connected to "booter" services that let paying customers launch crippling distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks. Ten of the domains are reincarnations of DDoS-for-hire services the FBI seized in December 2022, when...

FBI Seizes Bot Shop ‘Genesis Market’ Amid Arrests Targeting Operators, Suppliers

Several domain names tied to Genesis Market, a bustling cybercrime store that sold access to passwords and other data stolen from millions of computers infected with malicious software, were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI today. The domain seizures coincided with more than a...

ConnectWise Quietly Patches Flaw That Helps Phishers

ConnectWise, which offers a self-hosted, remote desktop software application that is widely used by Managed Service Providers MSPs, is warning about an unusually sophisticated phishing attack that can let attackers take remote control over user systems when recipients click the included link. The...

Hacker Charged With Extorting Online Psychotherapy Service

A 25-year-old Finnish man has been charged with extorting a once popular and now-bankrupt online psychotherapy company and its patients. Finnish authorities rarely name suspects in an investigation, but they were willing to make an exception for Julius "Zeekill" Kivimaki, a notorious hacker who -...

Russia to Rent Tech-Savvy Prisoners to Corporate IT?

Image: Proxima Studios, via Shutterstock. Faced with a brain drain of smart people fleeing the country following its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation is floating a new strategy to address a worsening shortage of qualified information technology experts: Forcing tech-savvy people within...

Conti Ransomware Group Diaries, Part I: Evasion

A Ukrainian security researcher this week leaked several years of internal chat logs and other sensitive data tied to Conti, an aggressive and ruthless Russian cybercrime group that focuses on deploying its ransomware to companies with more than $100 million in annual revenue. The chat logs offer...

IRS: Selfies Now Optional, Biometric Data to Be Deleted

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service IRS said Monday that taxpayers are no longer required to provide facial scans to create an account online at irs.gov. In lieu of providing biometric data, taxpayers can now opt for a live video interview with ID.me, the privately-held Virginia company that runs t...

CISO MAG Honors KrebsOnSecurity

CISO MAG, a publication dedicated to covering issues near and dear to corporate chief information security officers everywhere, has graciously awarded this author the designation of "Cybersecurity Person of the Year" in its December 2019 issue. KrebsOnSecurity is grateful for the unexpected honor...

Alleged Spam Kingpin ‘Severa’ Extradited to US

Peter Yuryevich Levashov, a 37-year-old Russian computer programmer thought to be one of the world's most notorious spam kingpins, has been extradited to the United States to face federal hacking and spamming charges. Levashov, in an undated photo. Levashov, who allegedly went by the hacker names...

Following the Money Hobbled vDOS Attack-for-Hire Service

A new report proves the value of following the money in the fight against dodgy cybercrime services known as "booters" or "stressers" -- virtual hired muscle that can be rented to knock nearly any website offline. Last fall, two 18-year-old Israeli men were arrested for allegedly running vDOS,...

Alleged Spam King Pyotr Levashov Arrested

Authorities in Spain have arrested a Russian computer programmer thought to be one of the world's most notorious spam kingpins. Spanish police arrested Pyotr Levashov under an international warrant executed in the city of Barcelona, according to Reuters. Russian state-run television station RT...

Mozilla Says It’s Finally Done With Two-Faced Onerep

In March 2024, Mozilla said it was winding down its collaboration with Onerep -- an identity protection service offered with the Firefox web browser that promises to remove users from hundreds of people-search sites -- after KrebsOnSecurity revealed Onerep's founder had created dozens of...

Cloudflare Scrubs Aisuru Botnet from Top Domains List

For the past week, domains associated with the massive Aisuru botnet have repeatedly usurped Amazon , Apple , Google and Microsoft in Cloudflare's public ranking of the most frequently requested websites. Cloudflare responded by redacting Aisuru domain names from their top websites list. The chie...

Microsoft Fix Targets Attacks on SharePoint Zero-Day

On Sunday, July 20, Microsoft Corp. issued an emergency security update for a vulnerability in SharePoint Server that is actively being exploited to compromise vulnerable organizations. The patch comes amid reports that malicious hackers have used the SharePoint flaw to breach U.S. federal and...

Inside a Dark Adtech Empire Fed by Fake CAPTCHAs

Late last year, security researchers made a startling discovery: Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns were bypassing moderation on social media platforms by leveraging the same malicious advertising technology that powers a sprawling ecosystem of online hucksters and website hackers. A new...