Hard to believe it’s time to celebrate another go ’round the Sun for KrebsOnSecurity! Today marks exactly seven years since I left The Washington Post and started this here solo thing. And what a remarkable year 2016 has been!
The word cloud above includes a sampling of tags used in stories on KrebsOnSecurity throughout the past year. It’s been a wild one, riddled with huge attacks, big cybercriminal busts and of course a whole mess of data breaches.
The biggest attack of all — the 620 Gbps distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assault against this site on Sept. 22 — resulted in KrebsOnSecurity being unplugged for several days. The silver lining? I now have a stronger site and readership. Through it all, the community that has grown up around this site was extremely supportive and encouraging. I couldn’t be prouder of this community, so a huge THANK YOU to all of my readers, both new and old.
It’s fair to say that many of the subjects in the word cloud above are going to continue to haunt us in 2017, particularly ransomware, CEO fraud and DDoS attacks. I am hopeful to have more on the “who” behind the September attacks against this site in the New Year. I promise it’s going to be a story worth waiting for. Stay tuned.
Also, many of you have asked whether we can have a more responsive theme on this blog. It is true that the site hasn’t been updated appearance-wise since it launched seven years ago, and that it’s long overdue for a facelift. We were on track to have that done by today’s blog post, but for a variety of reasons this will have to wait until the early New Year. Thank you for your patience.
My aim from the beginning with this site has been to focus on producing original, impactful reporting on computer security and cybercrime, and to keep the content free for anyone and everyone. That remains my intention. For those of you who have Adblock installed, please consider adding an exception for my site: For security reasons (see malvertising for more info), this site has not allowed third-party content since late 2011, and all of the handful of ads that run here are hosted locally and have been fully vetted.
As always, below are links to some of the most-read stories on the site this year. Thanks again for your readership, encouragement and support!
Oct. 21: Hacked Cameras, DVRs Powered Today’s Massive Internet Outage
Oct. 3: Who Makes the IoT Things Under Attack?
Sept. 25: The Democratization of Censorship
Sept. 13: Secret Service Warns of ‘Periscope’ Skimmers
Sept. 10: Alleged vDOS Proprietors Arrested in Israel
Sept. 8: Israeli Online Attack Service ‘vDOS’ Earned $600,000 in Two Years
Aug. 26: Inside ‘The Attack that Almost Broke the Internet’
Feb. 18: This is Why People Fear the Internet of Things
Congrats Krebs!
Hello Sir
Just saying well done, you’re my best out there as far as cyber matters are concerned. I am looking to learn about “ethical hacking”.
“ethical” as long as government does it.
Best regards
Happy birthday happy birthday happy birthday we hope you’re growing into a Titan the journalist can work I’m just do their jobs. It’s time to turn the page it’s time for you to become journalist company so you can have everything to do the job the way it should have been done without being influenced by.
Happy birthday Brian and a big thank you for all your diligent work. Keep it up, you are appreciated.
“producing original, impactful reporting on computer security and cybercrime”
You’ve nailed that, Brian! Congrats and Happy New Year in more ways than one.
Brain – Congrats on seven years of success and helping readers stay one step ahead of hackers.
Thank you for not giving up or giving in to the enemy.
Well done !
Scott Schober
Author of Hacked Again
Thanks for all the good work!
Hey why not donate some small money to Krebs, you freeloaders.
I bought “Spam Nation.” Does that count?
You’ve had some really amazing articles this year! Always enjoy reading the scoop!
Congratulations Brian. Keep up the good work, fascinating stuff.
As per your polite request, this site has been Adblock Plus whitelisted by this reader.
Have you ever considered moving to the Facebook Social plugin for your comment section? Many sites have that feature and I find it’s an easy-to-use and visually-appealing comment format.
Happy birthday, KOS. I think you’re like a year old in dog years. Or something.
Happy Anniversary, incredible work!
Seven years already? Time just flies by. KOS just seems to get better and better. Thanks, Brian. Keep on looking under those rocks.
Happy birthday
Keep up the good works..
Ted
Happy Birthday “Krabs on Security “
Happy Birthday to KrebsonSecurity! I have enjoyed following your blog for a few of those years. It’s a great resource that’s fun to read and (most of the time) easy to understand. 🙂 Best wishes for even greater success in the future, Brian!
Brain
Happy seventh birthday
We have been with you since
2009 when we discovered we were
Victims of identity theft
After reading your column
We recovered and use your
Security measures even to this day
Thank you for restoring our faith in
Computers and the dream of
Bill Gates ideals of the future
Al
Congratulations, on being one of the go to for security information. Many more years to you…
Like most readers of this site no doubt, I had an ad-blocker turned on. You should publish your request more often! I gladly whitelisted but I’ve been reading you for a long time … probably all 7 years, and I’m sad that I could have been more supportive through the years if only I had known.
And I almost didn’t read this article even though I’m a regular reader …
Thanks, William. It’s just something I’ve noticed more of in the past year or so; the traffic vs. the ad impressions.
Congratulations! You’re highly appreciated.
Happy Birthday Krebs!!
Excellent Work over 7 years
Congrats!
Congrats Brian. I appreciate the trail-blazing that you’ve done, and thank you for easing my path. Many, many more.
My hero! Happy Birthday Brian. Keep fighting the good fight.
Brian,
You are always a “must read” around here.
-rwf-
Congratulations! I always enjoy your content.
Brian,
Congrats on 7 years. I wont mention on here but you have helped me multiple times over the years with the last company I was at.
Recently I was part of a multi-company Incident Response table top and your name was used by the presenter that “Brian Krebs a prominent security blogger has just contacted your company”… “what do you do…”
Long story short I’m new to this company so I had to explain to the senior management of who you were and provide a rebuttal to the statement of… “who cares about some blogger”.
Thanks for the many informative years and I look for to many more.
JD
Ditto to all positive comments re: “Krebs on Security”.
Thank you…and congratulations! Love the book.
Keep writing and blogging. We are all very grateful.
I was a reader of yours on wapo dot com and was unhappy when you left. I left them myself as a reader, now only going there sporadically when something catches my eye on news dot google dot com. I’m looking forward to many more years of reading krebsonsecurity dot com.