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...

Experian’s Credit Freeze Security is Still a Joke

In 2017, KrebsOnSecurity showed how easy it is for identity thieves to undo a consumers request to freeze their credit file at Experian, one of the big three consumer credit bureaus in the United States. Last week, KrebsOnSecurity heard from a reader who had his freeze thawed without authorizatio...

Breach at Dickey’s BBQ Smokes 3M Cards

One of the digital undergrounds most popular stores for peddling stolen credit card information began selling a batch of more than three million new card records this week. KrebsOnSecurity has learned the data was stolen in a lengthy data breach at more than 100 Dickeys Barbeque Restaurant...

Interview With the Guy Who Tried to Frame Me for Heroin Possession

In April 2013, I received via U.S. mail more than a gram of pure heroin as part of a scheme to get me arrested for drug possession. But the plan failed and the Ukrainian mastermind behind it soon after was imprisoned for unrelated cybercrime offenses. That individual recently gave his first...

Supreme Court: Police Need Warrant for Mobile Location Data

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the government needs to obtain a court-ordered warrant to gather location data on mobile device users. The decision is a major development for privacy rights, but experts say it may have limited bearing on the selling of real-time customer location data by...

Hyatt Hotels Suffers 2nd Card Breach in 2 Years

Hyatt Corp. is alerting customers about another credit card breach at some hotels, the second major incident with the hospitality chain in as many years. Hyatt said its cyber security team discovered signs of unauthorized access to payment card information from cards manually entered or swiped at...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, December 2023 Edition

The final Patch Tuesday of 2023 is upon us, with Microsoft Corp. today releasing fixes for a relatively small number of security holes in its Windows operating systems and other software. Even more unusual, there are no known "zero-day" threats targeting any of the vulnerabilities in Decembers...

Russian Reshipping Service ‘SWAT USA Drop’ Exposed

The login page for the criminal reshipping service SWAT USA Drop. One of the largest cybercrime services for laundering stolen merchandise was hacked recently, exposing its internal operations, finances and organizational structure. Heres a closer look at the Russia-based SWAT USA Drop Service,...

U.S. Treasury, Commerce Depts. Hacked Through SolarWinds Compromise

Communications at the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments were reportedly compromised by a supply chain attack on SolarWinds, a security vendor that helps the federal government and a range of Fortune 500 companies monitor the health of their IT networks. Given the breadth of the companys...

The iPhone 11 Pro’s Location Data Puzzler

One of the more curious behaviors of Apple's new iPhone 11 Pro is that it intermittently seeks the user's location information even when all applications and system services on the phone are individually set to never request this data. Apple says this is by design, but that response seems at odds...

Ransomware Hits B2B Payments Firm Billtrust

Business-to-business payments provider Billtrust is still recovering from a ransomware attack that began last week. The company said it is in the final stages of bringing all of its systems back online from backups. With more than 550 employees, Lawrence Township, N.J.-based Billtrust is a...

Experts: Breach at IT Outsourcing Giant Wipro

Indian information technology IT outsourcing and consulting giant Wipro Ltd. NYSE:WIT is investigating reports that its own IT systems have been hacked and are being used to launch attacks against some of the company's customers, multiple sources tell KrebsOnSecurity. Wipro has refused to respond...

Marriott: Data on 500 Million Guests Stolen in 4-Year Breach

Hospitality giant Marriott today disclosed a massive data breach exposing the personal and financial information on as many as a half billion customers who made reservations at any of its Starwood properties over the past four years. Marriott said the breach involved unauthorized access to a...

Plant Your Flag, Mark Your Territory

Many people, particularly older folks, proudly declare they avoid using the Web to manage various accounts tied to their personal and financial data -- including everything from utilities and mobile phones to retirement benefits and online banking services. The reasoning behind this strategy is a...

A Sobering Look at Fake Online Reviews

In 2016, KrebsOnSecurity exposed a network of phony Web sites and fake online reviews that funneled those seeking help for drug and alcohol addiction toward rehab centers that were secretly affiliated with the Church of Scientology. Not long after the story ran, that network of bogus reviews...

Look-Alike Domains and Visual Confusion

How good are you at telling the difference between domain names you know and trust and impostor or look-alike domains? The answer may depend on how familiar you are with the nuances of internationalized domain names IDNs, as well as which browser or Web application you're using. For example, how...

Suspended Sentence for Mirai Botmaster Daniel Kaye

Last month, KrebsOnSecurity identified U.K. citizen Daniel Kaye as the likely real-life identity behind a hacker responsible for clumsily wielding a powerful botnet built on Mirai, a malware strain that enslaves poorly secured Internet of Things IoT devices for use in large-scale online attacks...

Google Suspends Chinese E-Commerce App Pinduoduo Over Malware

Google says it has suspended the app for the Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo after malware was found in versions of the software. The move comes just weeks after Chinese security researchers published an analysis suggesting the popular e-commerce app sought to seize total control over affected...

Who’s Behind the ‘Web Listings’ Mail Scam?

In December 2018, KrebsOnSecurity looked at how dozens of U.S. political campaigns, cities and towns had paid a shady company called Web Listings Inc. after receiving what looked like a bill for search engine optimization SEO services rendered on behalf of their domain names. The story concluded...

What We Can Learn from the Capital One Hack

On Monday, a former Amazon employee was arrested and charged with stealing more than 100 million consumer applications for credit from Capital One. Since then, many have speculated the breach was perhaps the result of a previously unknown "zero-day" flaw, or an "insider" attack in which the accus...

Busting SIM Swappers and SIM Swap Myths

KrebsOnSecurity recently had a chance to interview members of the REACT Task Force, a team of law enforcement officers and prosecutors based in Santa Clara, Calif. that has been tracking down individuals engaged in unauthorized "SIM swaps" -- a complex form of mobile phone fraud that is often use...

Hanging Up on Mobile in the Name of Security

An entrepreneur and virtual currency investor is suing AT&T for $224 million, claiming the wireless provider was negligent when it failed to prevent thieves from hijacking his mobile account and stealing millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies. Increasingly frequent, high-profile attacks like the...

Credit Card Issuer TCM Bank Leaked Applicant Data for 16 Months

TCM Bank, a company that helps more than 750 small and community U.S. banks issue credit cards to their account holders, said a Web site misconfiguration exposed the names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of thousands of people who applied for cards between early March 2017...

Adrian Lamo, ‘Homeless Hacker’ Who Turned in Chelsea Manning, Dead at 37

Adrian Lamo, the hacker probably best known for breaking into The New York Times's network and for reporting Chelsea Manning's theft of classified documents to the FBI, was found dead in a Kansas apartment on Wednesday. Lamo was widely reviled and criticized for turning in Manning, but that chapt...

Financial Cyber Threat Sharing Group Phished

The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center FS-ISAC, an industry forum for sharing data about critical cybersecurity threats facing the banking and finance industries, said today that a successful phishing attack on one of its employees was used to launch additional phishing...

2nd Breach at Verticalscope Impacts Millions

For the second time in as many years, hackers have compromised Verticalscope.com, a Canadian company that manages hundreds of popular Web discussion forums totaling more than 45 million user accounts. Evidence of the breach was discovered just before someone began using that illicit access as a...

Breach at DocuSign Led to Targeted Email Malware Campaign

DocuSign, a major provider of electronic signature technology, acknowledged today that a series of recent malware phishing attacks targeting its customers and users was the result of a data breach at one of its computer systems. The company stresses that the data stolen was limited to customer an...

Ten Years Later, New Clues in the Target Breach

On Dec. 18, 2013, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that U.S. retail giant Target was battling a wide-ranging computer intrusion that compromised more than 40 million customer payment cards over the previous month. The malware used in the Target breach included the text string "Rescator," which also...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, June 2023 Edition

Microsoft Corp. today released software updates to fix dozens of security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other software. This months relatively light patch load has another added bonus for system administrators everywhere: It appears to be the first Patch Tuesday since March...

Ubiquiti All But Confirms Breach Response Iniquity

For four days this past week, Internet-of-Things giant Ubiquiti did not respond to requests for comment on a whistleblowers allegations the company had massively downplayed a "catastrophic" two-month breach ending in January to save its stock price, and that Ubiquitis insinuation that a third-par...

WeLeakInfo Leaked Customer Payment Info

A little over a year ago, the FBI and law enforcement partners overseas seized WeLeakInfo.com, a wildly popular service that sold access to more than 12 billion usernames and passwords stolen from thousands of hacked websites. In an ironic turn of events, a lapsed domain registration tied to...

Happy 11th Birthday, KrebsOnSecurity!

Today marks the 11th anniversary of KrebsOnSecurity! Thank you, Dear Readers, for your continued encouragement and support! With the ongoing disruption to life and livelihood wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 has been a fairly horrid year by most accounts. And its perhaps fitting that this w...

Report: U.S. Cyber Command Behind Trickbot Tricks

A week ago, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that someone was attempting to disrupt the Trickbot botnet, a malware crime machine that has infected millions of computers and is often used to spread ransomware. A new report Friday says the coordinated attack was part of an operation carried out by th...

Apple Addresses iPhone 11 Location Privacy Concern

Apple is rolling out a new update to its iOS operating system that addresses the location privacy issue on iPhone 11 devices that was first detailed here last month. Beta versions of iOS 13.3.1 include a new setting that lets users disable the "Ultra Wideband" feature, a short-range technology th...

Happy 10th Birthday, KrebsOnSecurity.com

Today marks the 10th anniversary of KrebsOnSecurity.com! Over the past decade, the site has featured more than 1,800 stories focusing mainly on cybercrime, computer security and user privacy concerns. And what a decade it has been. Stories here have exposed countless scams, data breaches,...

Credit Freezes are Free: Let the Ice Age Begin

It is now free in every U.S. state to freeze and unfreeze your credit file and that of your dependents, a process that blocks identity thieves and others from looking at private details in your consumer credit history. If you've been holding out because you're not particularly worried about ID...

Mirai Botnet Authors Avoid Jail Time

Citing "extraordinary cooperation" with the government, a court in Alaska on Tuesday sentenced three men to probation, community service and fines for their admitted roles in authoring and using "Mirai," a potent malware strain used in countless attacks designed to knock Web sites offline --...

How to Opt Out of Equifax Revealing Your Salary History

A KrebsOnSecurity series on how easy big-three credit bureau Equifax makes it to get detailed salary history data on tens of millions of Americans apparently inspired a deeper dive on the subject by Fast Company, which examined how this Equifax division has been one of the company's best...

The Equifax Breach: What You Should Know

It remains unclear whether those responsible for stealing Social Security numbers and other data on as many as 143 million Americans from big-three credit bureau Equifax intend to sell this data to identity thieves. But if ever there was a reminder that you -- the consumer -- are ultimately...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, January 2023 Edition

Microsoft today released updates to fix nearly 100 security flaws in its Windows operating systems and other software. Highlights from the first Patch Tuesday of 2023 include a zero-day vulnerability in Windows, printer software flaws reported by the U.S. National Security Agency, and a critical...

A Light at the End of Liberty Reserve’s Demise?

In May 2013, the U.S. Justice Department seized Liberty Reserve, alleging the virtual currency service acted as a $6 billion financial hub for the cybercrime world. Prompted by assurances that the government would one day afford Liberty Reserve users a chance to reclaim any funds seized as part o...

Sale of 4 Million Stolen Cards Tied to Breaches at 4 Restaurant Chains

On Nov. 23, one of the cybercrime underground's largest bazaars for buying and selling stolen payment card data announced the immediate availability of some four million freshly-hacked debit and credit cards. KrebsOnSecurity has learned this latest batch of cards was siphoned from four different...

Bad .Men at .Work. Please Don’t .Click

Web site names ending in new top-level domains TLDs like .men, .work and .click are some of the riskiest and spammy-est on the Internet, according to experts who track such concentrations of badness online. Not that there still aren't a whole mess of nasty .com, .net and .biz domains out there, b...

San Diego Sues Experian Over ID Theft Service

The City of San Diego, Calif. is suing consumer credit bureau Experian, alleging that a data breach first reported by KrebsOnSecurity in 2013 affected more than a quarter-million people in San Diego but that Experian never alerted affected consumers as required under California law. The lawsuit,...

Experian Site Can Give Anyone Your Credit Freeze PIN

An alert reader recently pointed my attention to a free online service offered by big-three credit bureau Experian that allows anyone to request the personal identification number PIN needed to unlock a consumer credit file that was previously frozen at Experian. Experian's page for retrieving...

Flash Player is Dead, Long Live Flash Player!

Adobe last week detailed plans to retire its Flash Player software, a cross-platform browser plugin so powerful and so packed with security holes that it has become the favorite target of malware developers. To help eradicate this ubiquitous liability, Adobe is enlisting the help of Apple,...

Trump’s Dumps: ‘Making Dumps Great Again’

It's not uncommon for crooks who peddle stolen credit cards to seize on iconic American figures of wealth and power in the digital advertisements for their shops that run incessantly on various cybercrime forums. Exhibit A: McDumpals, a hugely popular carding site that borrows the Ronald McDonald...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, August 2023 Edition

Microsoft Corp. today issued software updates to plug more than 70 security holes in its Windows operating systems and related products, including multiple zero-day vulnerabilities currently being exploited in the wild. Six of the flaws fixed today earned Microsofts "critical" rating, meaning...

The Risk of Weak Online Banking Passwords

If you bank online and choose weak or re-used passwords, there's a decent chance your account could be pilfered by cyberthieves -- even if your bank offers multi-factor authentication as part of its login process. This story is about how crooks increasingly are abusing third-party financial...

Is ‘REvil’ the New GandCrab Ransomware?

The cybercriminals behind the GandCrab ransomware-as-a-service RaaS offering recently announced they were closing up shop and retiring after having allegedly earned more than $2 billion in extortion payments from victims. But a growing body of evidence suggests the GandCrab team have instead...