Author Archives: BrianKrebs

Secret Service Investigates Breach at U.S. Govt IT Contractor

September 9, 2019
56 Comments

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a breach at a Virginia-based government technology contractor that saw access to several of its systems put up for sale in the cybercrime underground, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The contractor claims the access being auctioned off was to old test systems that do not have direct connections to its government partner networks.

In mid-August, a member of a popular Russian-language cybercrime forum offered to sell access to the internal network of a U.S. government IT contractor that does business with more than 20 federal agencies, including several branches of the military. The seller bragged that he had access to email correspondence and credentials needed to view databases of the client agencies, and set the opening price at six bitcoins (~USD $60,000).

‘Satori’ IoT Botnet Operator Pleads Guilty

September 4, 2019
51 Comments

A 21-year-old man from Vancouver, Wash. has pleaded guilty to federal hacking charges tied to his role in operating the “Satori” botnet, a crime machine powered by hacked Internet of Things (IoT) devices that was built to conduct massive denial-of-service attacks targeting Internet service providers, online gaming platforms and Web hosting companies.

Spam In your Calendar? Here’s What to Do.

September 3, 2019
52 Comments

Many spam trends are cyclical: Spammers tend to switch tactics when one method of hijacking your time and attention stops working. But periodically they circle back to old tricks, and few spam trends are as perennial as calendar spam, in which invitations to click on dodgy links show up unbidden in your digital calendar application from Apple, Google and Microsoft. Here’s a brief primer on what you can do about it.

Feds Allege Adconion Employees Hijacked IP Addresses for Spamming

September 2, 2019
21 Comments

Federal prosecutors in California have filed criminal charges against four employees of Adconion Direct, an email advertising firm, alleging they unlawfully hijacked vast swaths of Internet addresses and used them in large-scale spam campaigns. KrebsOnSecurity has learned that the charges are likely just the opening salvo in a much larger, ongoing federal investigation into the company’s commercial email practices.

Phishers are Angling for Your Cloud Providers

August 30, 2019
37 Comments

Many companies are now outsourcing their marketing efforts to cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) providers. But when accounts at those CRM providers get hacked or phished, the results can be damaging for both the client’s brand and their customers. Here’s a look at a recent CRM-based phishing campaign that targeted customers of Fortune 500 construction equipment vendor United Rentals.

Cybersecurity Firm Imperva Discloses Breach

August 27, 2019
83 Comments

Imperva, a leading provider of Internet firewall services that help Web sites block malicious cyberattacks, alerted customers on Tuesday that a recent data breach exposed email addresses, scrambled passwords, API keys and SSL certificates for a subset of its firewall users.

Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Imperva sells firewall technology designed to detect and block various types of malicious Web traffic, from denial-of-service attacks to digital probes aimed at undermining the security of Web-based software applications.

Breach at Hy-Vee Supermarket Chain Tied to Sale of 5M+ Stolen Credit, Debit Cards

August 22, 2019
82 Comments

On Tuesday of this week, one of the more popular underground stores peddling credit and debit card data stolen from hacked merchants announced a blockbuster new sale: More than 5.3 million new accounts belonging to cardholders from 35 U.S. states. Multiple sources now tell KrebsOnSecurity that the card data came from compromised gas pumps, coffee shops and restaurants operated by Hy-Vee, an Iowa-based company that operates a chain of more than 245 supermarkets throughout the Midwestern United States.

Forced Password Reset? Check Your Assumptions

August 21, 2019
110 Comments

Almost weekly now I hear from an indignant reader who suspects a data breach at a Web site they frequent that has just asked the reader to reset their password. Further investigation almost invariably reveals that the password reset demand was not the result of a breach but rather the site’s efforts to identify customers who are reusing passwords from other sites that have already been hacked.

But ironically, many companies taking these proactive steps soon discover that their explanation as to why they’re doing it can get misinterpreted as more evidence of lax security. This post attempts to unravel what’s going on here.

The Rise of “Bulletproof” Residential Networks

August 19, 2019
58 Comments

Cybercrooks increasingly are anonymizing their malicious traffic by routing it through residential broadband and wireless data connections. Most often, those connections are hacked computers, mobile phones, or home routers. But this is the story of a sprawling “bulletproof residential VPN” service that appears to have been built by acquiring chunks of Internet addresses from some the largest ISPs and mobile data providers in the United States and abroad.