Category Archives: The Washington Post

The Dark Nexus Between Harm Groups and ‘The Com’

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A cyberattack that shut down some of the top casinos in Las Vegas last year quickly became one of the most riveting security stories of 2023: It was the first known case of native English-speaking hackers in the United States and Britain teaming up with ransomware gangs based in Russia. But that made-for-Hollywood narrative has eclipsed a far more hideous trend: Many of these young, Western cybercriminals are also members of fast-growing online groups that exist solely to bully, stalk, harass and extort vulnerable teens into physically harming themselves and others. Continue reading The Dark Nexus Between Harm Groups and ‘The Com’→

IRS To Ditch Biometric Requirement for Online Access

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said today it will be transitioning away from requiring biometric data from taxpayers who wish to access their records at the agency’s website. The reversal comes as privacy experts and lawmakers have been pushing the IRS and other federal agencies to find less intrusive methods for validating one’s identity with the U.S. government online. Continue reading IRS To Ditch Biometric Requirement for Online Access→

Report: U.S. Cyber Command Behind Trickbot Tricks

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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 the U.S. military’s Cyber Command. Continue reading Report: U.S. Cyber Command Behind Trickbot Tricks→

Who’s Behind Monday’s 14-State 911 Outage?

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Emergency 911 systems were down for more than an hour on Monday in towns and cities across 14 U.S. states. The outages led many news outlets to speculate the problem was related to Microsoft’s Azure web services platform, which also was struggling with a widespread outage at the time. However, multiple sources tell KrebsOnSecurity the 911 issues stemmed from some kind of technical snafu involving Intrado and Lumen, two companies that together handle 911 calls for a broad swath of the United States. Continue reading Who’s Behind Monday’s 14-State 911 Outage?→

Monday, June 25: Dtex, Insider Threat in the News: Dtex CEO Christy Wyatt Speaks to Dark Reading about Tesla Insider Attack, NBC about Privacy and SCOTUS Cell Phone Decision; Tech’s Mega Players Meeting Wednesday to Talk Privacy and Regulation

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The United States Supreme Court last week ruled in ‘Carpenter v. United States’ that the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution requires law enforcement agencies to obtain a search warrant to access individuals’ cellphone location hi… Continue reading Monday, June 25: Dtex, Insider Threat in the News: Dtex CEO Christy Wyatt Speaks to Dark Reading about Tesla Insider Attack, NBC about Privacy and SCOTUS Cell Phone Decision; Tech’s Mega Players Meeting Wednesday to Talk Privacy and Regulation→

The Download on the DNC Hack

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been inundated with questions from readers asking why I haven’t written much about two stories that have consumed the news media of late: The alleged Russian hacking attacks against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and, more recently, the discovery of malware on a laptop at a Vermont power utility that has been attributed to Russian hacker groups. I’ve avoided covering these stories mainly because I don’t have any original reporting to add to them, and because I generally avoid chasing the story of the day — preferring instead to focus on producing original journalism on cybercrime and computer security. Continue reading The Download on the DNC Hack→