Author Archives: BrianKrebs

Alleged Chief of Romanian ATM Skimming Gang Arrested in Mexico

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An alleged top boss of a Romanian crime syndicate that U.S. authorities say is responsible for deploying card-skimming devices at Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) throughout North America was arrested in Mexico last week on firearms charges. The arrest comes months after the accused allegedly ordered the execution of a former bodyguard who was trying to help U.S. authorities bring down the group’s lucrative skimming operations. Continue reading Alleged Chief of Romanian ATM Skimming Gang Arrested in Mexico→

Canadian Police Raid ‘Orcus RAT’ Author

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Canadian police last week raided the residence of a Toronto software developer responsible for authoring and selling “Orcus RAT,” a software product that’s been marketed on underground forums and used in countless malware attacks since its creation in 2015. Its author maintains Orcus is a legitimate Remote Administration Tool that is merely being abused, but security experts say it includes multiple features more typically seen in malware known as a Remote Access Trojan. Continue reading Canadian Police Raid ‘Orcus RAT’ Author→

Annual Protest Raises $250K to Cure Krebs

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For the second year in a row, denizens of a large German-language online forum have donated more than USD $250,000 to cancer research organizations in protest of a story KrebsOnSecurity published in 2018 that unmasked the creators of Coinhive, a now-defunct cryptocurrency mining service that was massively abused by cybercriminals. Krebs is translated as “cancer” in German. Continue reading Annual Protest Raises $250K to Cure Krebs→

Man Behind Fatal ‘Swatting’ Gets 20 Years

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Tyler Barriss, a 26-year-old California man who admitted making a phony emergency call to police in late 2017 that led to the shooting death of an innocent Kansas resident, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Continue reading Man Behind Fatal ‘Swatting’ Gets 20 Years→

A Month After 2 Million Customer Cards Sold Online, Buca di Beppo Parent Admits Breach

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On Feb. 21, 2019, KrebsOnSecurity contacted Italian restaurant chain Buca di Beppo after discovering strong evidence that two million credit and debit card numbers belonging to the company’s customers were being sold in the cybercrime underground. Toda… Continue reading A Month After 2 Million Customer Cards Sold Online, Buca di Beppo Parent Admits Breach→

Alleged Child Porn Lord Faces US Extradition

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In 2013, the FBI exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Firefox to seize control over a Dark Web network of child pornography sites. The alleged owner of that ring – 33-year-old Freedom Hosting operator Eric Eoin Marques – was arrested in Ireland later that year on a U.S. warrant and has been in custody ever since. This week, Ireland’s Supreme Court cleared the way for Marques to be extradited to the United States. Continue reading Alleged Child Porn Lord Faces US Extradition→

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

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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 abused access to this data. Continue reading Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years→

Why Phone Numbers Stink As Identity Proof

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Phone numbers stink for security and authentication. They stink because most of us have so much invested in these digits that they’ve become de facto identities. At the same time, when you lose control over a phone number — maybe it’s hijacked by fraudsters, you got separated or divorced, or you were way late on your phone bill payments — whoever inherits that number can then be you in a lot of places online. Continue reading Why Phone Numbers Stink As Identity Proof→

Ad Network Sizmek Probes Account Breach

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Online advertising firm Sizmek Inc. [NASDAQ: SZMK] says it is investigating a security incident in which a hacker was reselling access to a user account with the ability to modify ads and analytics for a number of big-name advertisers.
In a recent… Continue reading Ad Network Sizmek Probes Account Breach→

Patch Tuesday, March 2019 Edition

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Microsoft on Tuesday pushed out software updates to fix more than five dozen security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems, Internet Explorer, Edge, Office and Sharepoint. If you (ab)use Microsoft products, it’s time once again to start thinking about getting your patches on. Malware or bad guys can remotely exploit roughly one-quarter of the flaws fixed in today’s patch batch without any help from users. Continue reading Patch Tuesday, March 2019 Edition→