You know you’re getting old when you can’t remember your own birthday (a reader tipped me off). Today is the sixth anniversary of this site’s launch! KrebsOnSecurity turns 6! I’m pretty sure that’s like middle age in Internet years.
Adobe has shipped a new version of its Flash Player browser plugin to close at least 19 security holes in the program, including one that is already being exploited in active attacks.
My PayPal account was hacked on Christmas Eve. The perpetrator tried to further stir up trouble by sending my PayPal funds to a hacker gang that recruits for the terrorist group ISIS. Although the intruder failed to siphon any funds, the successful takeover of the account speaks volumes about why most organizations — including many financial institutions — remain woefully behind the times in authenticating their customers and staying ahead of identity thieves.
Hyatt Hotels Corporation said today it recently discovered malicious software designed to steal credit card data on computers that operate the payment processing systems for Hyatt-managed locations.
Expect phishers and other password thieves to up their game in 2016: Both Google and Yahoo! are taking steps to kill off the password as we know it.
New authentication methods now offered by Yahoo! and to a beta group of Google users let customers log in just by supplying their email address, and then responding to a notification sent to their mobile device.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission this past week announced it reached settlements with software giant Oracle and identity protection firm LifeLock over separate charges of allegedly deceiving users and customers. LifeLock agreed to pay $100 million for violating a 2010 promise to cease deceptive advertising practices. Oracle’s legal troubles with the FTC stem from its failure to fully remove older, less secure versions of Java when consumers installed the latest Java software.
Digital gift card retailer Gyft has forced a password reset for some of its users. The move comes in response to the theft of usernames and passwords from a subset of Gyft customers.
Fraud analysts in the banking industry tell KrebsOnSecurity that the latest hospitality firm to suffer a credit card breach is likely Landry’s Inc., a company that manages a nationwide stable of well-known restaurants — including Bubba Gump, Claim Jumper, McCormick & Schmick’s, and Morton’s. Landry’s has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Sources at multiple financial institutions say they are tracking a pattern of fraud indicating that thieves have somehow compromised the credit card terminals at checkout lanes within multiple Safeway stores in California and Colorado. Safeway confirmed it is investigating skimming incidents at several stores.
The makers of MacKeeper — a much-maligned software utility many consider to be little more than scareware that targets Mac users — have acknowledged a breach that exposed the usernames, passwords and other information on more than 13 million customers and, er…users. Perhaps more interestingly, the guy who found and reported the breach doesn’t even own a Mac, and discovered the data trove merely by browsing Shodan — a specialized search engine that looks for and indexes virtually anything that gets connected to the Internet.
