Author Archives: BrianKrebs

A Deep Dive on the Recent Widespread DNS Hijacking Attacks

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The U.S. government — along with a number of leading security companies — recently warned about a series of highly complex and widespread attacks that allowed suspected Iranian hackers to siphon huge volumes of email passwords and other sensitive data from multiple governments and private companies. But to date, the specifics of exactly how that attack went down and who was hit have remained shrouded in secrecy.

This post seeks to document the extent of those attacks, and traces the origins of this overwhelmingly successful cyber espionage campaign back to a cascading series of breaches at key Internet infrastructure providers. Continue reading A Deep Dive on the Recent Widespread DNS Hijacking Attacks→

Bomb Threat Hoaxer Exposed by Hacked Gaming Site

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Federal authorities this week arrested a North Carolina man who allegedly ran with a group of online hooligans that attacked Web sites (including this one), took requests on Twitter to call in bomb threats to thousands of schools, and tried to frame various online gaming sites as the culprits. In an ironic twist, the accused — who had fairly well separated his real life identity from his online personas — appears to have been caught after a gaming Web site he frequented got hacked. Continue reading Bomb Threat Hoaxer Exposed by Hacked Gaming Site→

Patch Tuesday, February 2019 Edition

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Microsoft on Tuesday issued a bevy of patches to correct at least 70 distinct security vulnerabilities in Windows and software designed to interact with various flavors of the operating system. This month’s patch batch tackles some notable threats to e… Continue reading Patch Tuesday, February 2019 Edition→

Email Provider VFEmail Suffers ‘Catastrophic’ Hack

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Email provider VFEmail has suffered what the company is calling “catastrophic destruction” at the hands of an as-yet unknown intruder who trashed all of the company’s primary and backup data in the United States. The firm’s founder says he now fears some 18 years’ worth of customer email may be gone forever. Continue reading Email Provider VFEmail Suffers ‘Catastrophic’ Hack→

Phishers Target Anti-Money Laundering Officers at U.S. Credit Unions

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A highly targeted, malware-laced phishing campaign landed in the inboxes of multiple credit unions last week. The missives are raising eyebrows because they were sent only to specific anti-money laundering contacts at the credit unions, and many credit union sources say they suspect the non-public data may have been somehow obtained from the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), an independent federal agency that insures deposits at federally insured credit unions. Continue reading Phishers Target Anti-Money Laundering Officers at U.S. Credit Unions→

More Alleged SIM Swappers Face Justice

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Prosecutors in Northern California have charged two men with using unauthorized SIM swaps to steal and extort money from victims. One of the individuals charged allegedly used a hacker nickname belonging to a key figure in the underground who’s built a solid reputation hijacking mobile phone numbers for profit.

According to indictments unsealed this week, Tucson, Ariz. resident Ahmad Wagaafe Hared and Matthew Gene Ditman of Las Vegas were part of a group that specialized in tricking or bribing representatives at the major wireless providers into giving them control over phone numbers belonging to people they later targeted for extortion and theft. Continue reading More Alleged SIM Swappers Face Justice→

Crooks Continue to Exploit GoDaddy Hole

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Godaddy.com, the world’s largest domain name registrar, recently addressed an authentication weakness that cybercriminals were using to blast out spam through legitimate, dormant domains. But several more recent malware spam campaigns suggest GoDaddy’s fix hasn’t gone far enough, and that scammers likely still have a sizable arsenal of hijacked GoDaddy domains at their disposal. Continue reading Crooks Continue to Exploit GoDaddy Hole→

250 Webstresser Users to Face Legal Action

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More than 250 customers of a popular and powerful online attack-for-hire service that was dismantled by authorities in 2018 are expected to face legal action for the damage they caused, according to Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency…. Continue reading 250 Webstresser Users to Face Legal Action→

Three Charged for Working With Serial Swatter

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The Justice Department has filed criminal charges against three U.S. men accused of swatting, or making hoax reports of bomb threats or murders in a bid to trigger a heavily armed police response to a target’s address. Investigators say the men, aged 19 to 23, all carried out the attacks with the help of Tyler Barriss, a convicted serial swatter whose last stunt in late 2018 cost an Oklahoma man his life.

FBI agents on Wednesday arrested Neal Patel, 23, of Des Plaines, Ill. and Tyler Stewart, 19 of Gulf Breeze, Fla. The third defendant, Logan Patten, 19, of Greenwood, Mo., agreed to turn himself in. The men are charged in three separate indictments with conspiracy and conveying false information about the use of explosive devices. Continue reading Three Charged for Working With Serial Swatter→

How the U.S. Govt. Shutdown Harms Security

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The ongoing partial U.S. federal government shutdown is having a tangible, negative impact on cybercrime investigations, according to interviews with federal law enforcement investigators and a report issued this week by a group representing the interests of FBI agents. Even if lawmakers move forward on new proposals to reopen the government, sources say the standoff is likely have serious repercussions for federal law enforcement agencies for years to come.

One federal agent with more than 20 years on the job told KrebsOnSecurity that the shutdown “is crushing our ability to take the fight to cyber criminals.” Continue reading How the U.S. Govt. Shutdown Harms Security→