Adobe, Microsoft Push Critical Security Fixes

It's Patch Tuesday, again. That is, if you run Microsoft Windows or Adobe products. Microsoft issued a dozen patch bundles to fix at least 54 security flaws in Windows and associated software. Separately, Adobe's got a new version of its Flash Player available that addresses at least three...

Self-Service Food Kiosk Vendor Avanti Hacked

Avanti Markets, a company whose self-service payment kiosks sit beside shelves of snacks and drinks in thousands of corporate breakrooms across America, has suffered of breach of its internal networks in which hackers were able to push malicious software out to those payment devices, the company...

B&B Theatres Hit in 2-Year Credit Card Breach

B&B Theatres, a company that owns and operates the 7th-largest theater chain in America, says it is investigating a breach of its credit card systems. The acknowledgment comes just days after KrebsOnSecurity reached out to the company for comment on reports from financial industry sources who sai...

Who is the GovRAT Author and Mirai Botmaster ‘Bestbuy’?

In February 2017, authorities in the United Kingdom arrested a 29-year-old U.K. man on suspicion of knocking more than 900,000 Germans offline in an attack tied to Mirai, a malware strain that enslaves Internet of Things IoT devices like security cameras and Internet routers for use in large-scal...

Is it Time to Can the CAN-SPAM Act?

Regulators at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission FTC are asking for public comment on the effectiveness of the CAN-SPAM Act, a 14-year-old federal law that seeks to crack down on unsolicited commercial email. Judging from an unscientific survey by this author, the FTC is bound to get an earful...

So You Think You Can Spot a Skimmer?

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the automated teller machine -- better known to most people as the ATM or cash machine. Thanks to the myriad methods thieves have devised to fleece unsuspecting cash machine users over the years, there are now more ways than ever to get ripped off at the AT...

‘Petya’ Ransomware Outbreak Goes Global

A new strain of ransomware dubbed "Petya" is worming its way around the world with alarming speed. The malware is spreading using a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that the software giant patched in March 2017 -- the same bug that was exploited by the recent and prolific WannaCry ransomware...

Got Robocalled? Don’t Get Mad; Get Busy.

Several times a week my cell phone receives the telephonic equivalent of spam: A robocall. On each occasion the call seems to come from a local number, but when I answer there is that telltale pause followed by an automated voice pitching some product or service. So when I heard from a reader who...

FBI: Extortion, CEO Fraud Among Top Online Fraud Complaints in 2016

Online extortion, tech support scams and phishing attacks that spoof the boss were among the most costly cyber scams reported by consumers and businesses last year, according to new figures from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3. The IC3 report released Thursday correctly identifies...

Why So Many Top Hackers Hail from Russia

Conventional wisdom says one reason so many hackers seem to hail from Russia and parts of the former Soviet Union is that these countries have traditionally placed a much greater emphasis than educational institutions in the West on teaching information technology in middle and high schools, and...

Credit Card Breach at Buckle Stores

The Buckle Inc., a clothier that operates more than 450 stores in 44 U.S. states, disclosed Friday that its retail locations were hit by malicious software designed to steal customer credit card data. The disclosure came hours after KrebsOnSecurity contacted the company regarding reports from...

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...

Microsoft, Adobe Ship Critical Fixes

Microsoft today released security updates to fix almost a hundred flaws in its various Windows operating systems and related software. One bug is so serious that Microsoft is issuing patches for it on Windows XP and other operating systems the company no longer officially supports. Separately,...

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,...

OneLogin: Breach Exposed Ability to Decrypt Data

OneLogin, an online service that lets users manage logins to sites and apps from a single platform, says it has suffered a security breach in which customer data was compromised, including the ability to decrypt encrypted data. Headquartered in San Francisco, OneLogin provides single sign-on and...

Credit Card Breach at Kmart Stores. Again.

For the second time in less than three years, Kmart Stores is battling a malware-based security breach of its store credit card processing systems. Last week I began hearing from smaller banks and credit unions who said they strongly suspected another card breach at Kmart. Some of those...

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...

MolinaHealthcare.com Exposed Patient Records

Earlier this month, KrebsOnSecurity featured a story about a basic security flaw in the Web site of medical diagnostics firm True Health Group that let anyone who was logged in to the site view all other patient records. In that story I mentioned True Health was one of three major healthcare...

Should SaaS Companies Publish Customers Lists?

A few weeks back, HR and financial management firm Workday.com sent a security advisory to customers warning that crooks were sending targeted malware phishing attacks at customers. At the same time, Workday is publishing on its site a list of more than 800 companies that use its services, making...

Private Eye Allegedly Used Leaky Goverment Tool in Bid to Find Tax Data on Trump

In March 2017, KrebsOnSecurity warned that thieves who perpetrate tax refund fraud with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service were leveraging a widely-used online student loan tool to find critical data on consumers that allows them to claim huge refunds with the IRS in someone else's name. This week...

Fraudsters Exploited Lax Security at Equifax’s TALX Payroll Division

Identity thieves who specialize in tax refund fraud had big help this past tax year from Equifax, one of the nation's largest consumer data brokers and credit bureaus. The trouble stems from TALX, an Equifax subsidiary that provides online payroll, HR and tax services. Equifax says crooks were ab...

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...

Global ‘Wana’ Ransomware Outbreak Earned Perpetrators $26,000 So Far

As thousands of organizations work to contain and clean up the mess from this week's devastating Wana ransomware attack, the fraudsters responsible for releasing the digital contagion are no doubt counting their earnings and congratulating themselves on a job well done. But according to a review ...

Microsoft Issues WanaCrypt Patch for Windows 8, XP

Microsoft Corp. today took the unusual step of issuing security updates to address flaws in older, unsupported versions of Windows -- including Windows XP and Windows 8. The move is a bid to slow the spread of the WanaCrypt ransomware strain that infected tens of thousands of Windows computers...

U.K. Hospitals Hit in Widespread Ransomware Attack

At least 16 hospitals in the United Kingdom are being forced to divert emergency patients today after computer systems there were infected with ransomware, a type of malicious software that encrypts a victim's documents, images, music and other files unless the victim pays for a key to unlock the...

SSA.GOV To Require Stronger Authentication

The U.S. Social Security Administration will soon require Americans to use stronger authentication when accessing their accounts at ssa.gov. As part of the change, SSA will require all users to enter a username and password in addition to a one-time security code sent their email or phone. In thi...

Emergency Fix for Windows Anti-Malware Flaw Leads May’s Patch Tuesday

Adobe and Microsoft both issued updates today to fix critical security vulnerabilities in their software. Microsoft actually released an emergency update on Monday just hours ahead of today's regularly scheduled "Patch Tuesday" the 2nd Tuesday of each month to fix a dangerous flaw present in most...

Website Flaw Let True Health Diagnostics Users View All Medical Records

Over the past two weeks readers have pointed KrebsOnSecurity to no fewer than three different healthcare providers that failed to provide the most basic care to protect their patients' records online. Only one of the three companies -- the subject of today's story -- required users to be logged o...

Breach at Sabre Corp.’s Hospitality Unit

Breaches involving major players in the hospitality industry continue to pile up. Today, travel industry giant Sabre Corp. disclosed what could be a significant breach of payment and customer data tied to bookings processed through a reservations system that serves more than 32,000 hotels and oth...

Blind Trust in Email Could Cost You Your Home

The process of buying or selling a home can be extremely stressful and complex, but imagine the stress that would boil up if -- at settlement -- your money was wired to scammers in another country instead of to the settlement firm or escrow company. Here's the story about a phishing email that co...

UK Man Gets Two Years in Jail for Running ‘Titanium Stresser’ Attack-for-Hire Service

A 20-year-old man from the United Kingdom was sentenced to two years in prison today after admitting to operating and selling access to "Titanium Stresser," a simple-to-use service that let paying customers launch crippling online attacks against Web sites and individual Internet users. Adam Mudd...

The Backstory Behind Carder Kingpin Roman Seleznev’s Record 27 Year Prison Sentence

Roman Seleznev, a 32-year-old Russian cybercriminal and prolific credit card thief, was sentenced Friday to 27 years in federal prison. That is a record punishment for hacking violations in the United States and by all accounts one designed to send a message to criminal hackers everywhere. But a...

How Cybercrooks Put the Beatdown on My Beats

Last month Yours Truly got snookered by a too-good-to-be-true online scam in which some dirtball hijacked an Amazon merchant's account and used it to pimp steeply discounted electronics that he never intended to sell. Amazon refunded my money, and the legitimate seller never did figure out how hi...

Tracing Spam: Diet Pills from Beltway Bandits

Reading junk spam messages isn't exactly my idea of a good time, but sometimes fun can be had when you take a moment to check who really sent the email. Here's the simple story of how a recent spam email advertising celebrity "diet pills" was traced back to a Washington, D.C.-area defense...

InterContinental Hotel Chain Breach Expands

In December 2016, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that fraud experts at various banks were seeing a pattern suggesting a widespread credit card breach across some 5,000 hotels worldwide owned by InterContinental Hotels Group IHG. In February, IHG acknowledged a breach but said it appeared to invol...

Shoney’s Hit By Apparent Credit Card Breach

It's Friday, which means it's time for another episode of "Which Restaurant Chain Got Hacked?" Multiple sources in the financial industry say they've traced a pattern of fraud on customer cards indicating that the latest victim may be Shoney's, a 70-year-old restaurant chain that operates primari...

Critical Security Updates from Adobe, Microsoft

Adobe and Microsoft separately issued updates on Tuesday to fix a slew of security flaws in their products. Adobe patched dozens of holes in its Flash Player, Acrobat and Reader products. Microsoft pushed fixes to address dozens of vulnerabilities in Windows and related software. The biggest chan...

Fake News at Work in Spam Kingpin’s Arrest?

Over the past several days, many Western news media outlets have predictably devoured thinly-sourced reporting from a Russian publication that the arrest last week of a Russian spam kingpin in Spain was related to hacking attacks linked to last year’s U.S. election. While there is scant evidence...

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...