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
Thanks for another year of quality, relevant articles. I have also whitelisted your site on my AdBlock software.
Thank you, sir.
Congratulations keep up the great work!
Happy Birthday!!!
im a long time reader of Brian Krebs articles since the wp column, very good insight is provided in your articles.
a must read.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Krebs! Long may you run. The WaPo’s loss has been i think across the board, OUR gain. You are one of the leaders in our community.
Happy Birthday “Krebs on Security “
We are happy to keep learning from you.
I’d like to suggest you a new partner for your new challenge during the next year. It would be great if you could get in touch and collaborate with Mr Mafia Fighter #1 Roberto Saviano http://www.robertosaviano.com/.
I am sure you two together can work towards the roots of other deep problems of the modern world with surprising results.
Compliment for your book too! It’s impressive.
Thanks for all your help so far.
While Mr. Savino and Mr. Krebs are both courageous journalists, and this blog often covers stories where organized crime has at least some presence, something tells me that Mr. Krebs already has his hands full.
Congratulations, Mr. Krebs, on 7 years!
You truly perform a public service.
Typo: Should be Mr. Saviano.
Thanks – for your service and credible integrity. Rare to find online these days.
Happy New Year
“Many happy returns”
Its individuals who makes a difference in this world and you are one those who decided to do so.
You will always have support in this world, where every Nation State clamps down on democratic values and challenges the words Freedom and Liberty which is cherished in a democratic world.
Adding my congratulations to the list. Having an honest broker out there with your abilities and yet be so approachable is a blessing for those of us seeking useful cyber threat information.
I believe that I’ve whitelisted your site in most of my browsers but I’ll try and remember to double check.
Happy Birthday!
You’ve provided great content over the years and I’m looking forward to many more.
Congratulations on 7 successful years and may you have many more!
Thanks so much, Brian, for all you do. I honestly do not know how I would have made it through the maze the internet has become without you. Happy New Year!
Echoing others: Happy birthday, congrats and thank you! I’ve been a follower since your WP days and I widely and often recommend your blog to others. Loved your book, too.
Keep up the great work!
Regarding the site revamp: please keep it simple, straightforward, and easily readable.
Honestly, I don’t see why this site needs a revamp, because it is simple, straightforward, and easily readable right now.
Adding graphical elements and playing around with fancy fonts and changing the layout are all things graphics designers like to do, but they all interfere with the basic, simple premise of communicating information efficiently.
the site is not mobile friendly – it would benefit from this update.
Tarek,
The redesign we have planned may even be more sparse and featureless than the current design. It will certainly include fewer images and widgets. The main reason for the redesign is to make it more responsive, which is geek speak for “plays nice with mobile devices.”
Looking forward to the new design, then!
Happy 7th Birthday
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel compelled to come here and read a new article. You’ve done a good job. You’ve also managed to pull in a large enough group of commenters that seem to actually be engaged and knowledgable. Thank you for your hard work.
looking forward to the responsive design!
Congratulations on the 7 years. The fact that your site keeps getting attacked must mean that you are doing something with lasting benefits.
How did you generate that word cloud image? I haven’t seen one that that before and it’s a cool effect.
Zum Geburtstag viel Glück!
Congrats! You’re doing great work.
Thanks so much!
Thank You Brian for 7 years of important news, plus info and education. I’ve appreciated the thoughtful and patient responses of you and some others to explain things in layman terms over these many years. We don’t learn it through osmosis, someone had to explain the part in between the media and the tech-speak and you successfully accomplish that. I eagerly await your next book…perhaps on the massive ddos attack your site suffered? Again, many thanks!
just don’t make the text any grayer. black text on white background is easier to read.
Not much you can trust on the internet, yet Brian you are our go to guy for the pulse on cyber security.
All the best and Happy New Years!
Bravo!
Happy 7th birthday, been catching you since the WP as well. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for such a great and informative site. Interested in seeing the mobile optimized redesign, although I never had a problem with it other than having to landscape and zoom in to read articles easily.
Happy Birthday KoS!
I hope you don’t get the 7-year-itch and decide to do something else.
And yes, ad blocker has been off on your site for years.
Congratulations Brian…keep up the amazing work. This blog a big go-to in my world (banking/finance). I can’t believe how long I’ve been following this site. Time flies!
Bonza site mate, Has been for years and I expect it will go on that way for years to come. Your name is synonymous with security and journalism (something that is lacking in a lot of other sites). I hope your circle of information grows further and the black hats get more frustrated with your work..
The mobile friendly upgrade will help a lot of the younger people out 🙂 myself, I need to scroll that far in to read the text anyway I’d not likely notice!
Best wishes for the next 7 years and beyond.
Happy Birthday and Many Happy Returns!.
You are doing a great service to the IT community. I fully recognize the effort you [and your group] put in to providing the accurate information you publish. It is commendable.
EDP