Category Archives: Web Shell

How the suspected Equifax hackers covered their tracks

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Even for U.S. law enforcement, the Equifax hack was different. Unlike in previous examples of apparent Chinese government-backed cyber-operations, the hackers behind the Equifax breach stymied police for months. After the Office of Personnel Management hack in 2015, and the Marriott breach which was disclosed in 2018, investigators were confident enough that China was involved to tell the Wall Street Journal and New York Times about their suspicions soon afterward. With Equifax, the search for who was responsible was remarkably harder. Data stolen from the credit monitoring firm hadn’t appeared for sale on criminal forums, a possible indication of a nation-state’s involvement. And while the trove of financial information would certainly be useful to foreign intelligence agencies, using forensic data to validate that theory would prove to be a tall order. The charges announced Monday outline a conspiracy to not only steal a massive trove of information on 145 million Americans […]

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2nd Breach at Verticalscope Impacts Millions

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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 commercial for a new paid search service that indexes consumer information exposed in corporate data breaches. Continue reading 2nd Breach at Verticalscope Impacts Millions→

Breached Credit Union Comes Out of its Shell

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Notifying people and companies about data breaches often can be a frustrating and thankless job. Despite my best efforts, sometimes a breach victim I’m alerting will come away convinced that I am not an investigative journalist but instead a scammer. This happened most recently this week, when I told a California credit union that its online banking site was compromised and apparently had been for nearly two months. Continue reading Breached Credit Union Comes Out of its Shell→