Author Archives: BrianKrebs

Adrian Lamo, ‘Homeless Hacker’ Who Turned in Chelsea Manning, Dead at 37

March 18, 2018
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Adrian Lamo, the hacker probably best known for breaking into The New York Times’s network and for reporting Chelsea Manning’s theft of classified documents to the FBI, was found dead in a Kansas apartment on Wednesday. Lamo was widely reviled and criticized for turning in Manning, but that chapter of his life eclipsed the profile of a complex individual who taught me quite a bit about security over the years.

Adrian Lamo, in 2006. Source: Wikipedia.
I first met Lamo in 2001 when I was a correspondent for Newsbytes.com, a now-defunct tech publication that was owned by The Washington Post at the time. A mutual friend introduced us over AOL Instant Messenger, explaining that Lamo had worked out a simple method allowing him to waltz into the networks of some of the world’s largest media companies using nothing more than a Web browser.

Who Is Afraid of More Spams and Scams?

March 16, 2018
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Security researchers who rely on data included in Web site domain name records to combat spammers and scammers will likely lose access to that information for at least six months starting at the end of May 2018, under a new proposal that seeks to bring the system in line with new European privacy laws. The result, some experts warn, will likely mean more spams and scams landing in your inbox.

Flash, Windows Users: It’s Time to Patch

March 13, 2018
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Adobe and Microsoft each pushed critical security updates to their products today. Adobe’s got a new version of Flash Player available, and Microsoft released 14 updates covering more than 75 vulnerabilities, two of which were publicly disclosed prior to today’s patch release.

The Microsoft updates affect all supported Windows operating systems, as well as all supported versions of Internet Explorer/Edge, Office, Sharepoint and Exchange Server.

All of the critical vulnerabilities from Microsoft are in browsers and browser-related technologies, according to a post from security firm Qualys.

Checked Your Credit Since the Equifax Hack?

March 11, 2018
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A recent consumer survey suggests that half of all Americans still haven’t checked their credit report since the Equifax breach last year exposed the Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and other personal information on nearly 150 million people. If you’re in that fifty percent, please make an effort to remedy that soon.

Credit reports from the three major bureaus — Equifax, Experian and Trans Union — can be obtained online for free at annualcreditreport.com — the only Web site mandated by Congress to serve each American a free credit report every year.

Look-Alike Domains and Visual Confusion

March 8, 2018
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How good are you at telling the difference between domain names you know and trust and imposter or look-alike domains? The answer may depend on how familiar you are with the nuances of internationalized domain names (IDNs), as well as which browser or Web application you’re using.

For example, how does your browser interpret the following domain? I’ll give you a hint: Despite appearances, it is most certainly not the actual domain for software firm CA Technologies (formerly Computer Associates Intl Inc.), which owns the original ca.com domain name:

https://www.са.com/

Go ahead and click on the link above or cut-and-paste it into a browser address bar. If you’re using Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari, or some recent version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Edge browsers, you should notice that the address converts to “xn--80a7a.com.” This is called “punycode,” and it allows browsers to render domains with non-Latin alphabets like Cyrillic and Ukrainian.

Below is what it looks like in Edge on Windows 10; Google Chrome renders it much the same way. Notice what’s in the address bar (ignore the “fake site” and “Welcome to…” text, which was added as a courtesy by the person who registered this domain):

What Is Your Bank’s Security Banking On?

March 6, 2018
93 Comments

A large number of banks, credit unions and other financial institutions just pushed customers onto new e-banking platforms that asked them to reset their account passwords by entering a username plus some other static identifier — such as the first six digits of their Social Security number, or a mix of partial SSN, date of birth or surname. Here’s a closer look at what may be going on (spoiler: small, regional banks and credit unions have grown far too reliant on the whims of just a few major online banking platform providers).

You might think it odd that any self-respecting financial institution would seek to authenticate customers via static data like partial SSN for passwords, and you’d be justified for thinking that, too. Nobody has any business using these static identifiers for authentication because it’s all for sale on most Americans quite easily and cheaply in the cybercrime underground. The Equifax breach might have “refreshed” some of those data stores for identity thieves, but most U.S. adults have had their static details on sale for years now.

On Feb. 16, KrebsOnSecurity reader Brent Hoeft shared a copy of an email he’d just received from his financial institution Associated Bank, which at $30+ billion in assets happens to be Wisconsin’s largest by asset size.

Powerful New DDoS Method Adds Extortion

March 2, 2018
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Attackers have seized on a relatively new method for executing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks of unprecedented disruptive power, using it to launch record-breaking DDoS assaults over the past week. Now evidence suggests this novel attack method is fueling digital shakedowns in which victims are asked to pay a ransom to call off crippling cyberattacks.

Financial Cyber Threat Sharing Group Phished

March 1, 2018
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The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), an industry forum for sharing data about critical cybersecurity threats facing the banking and finance industries, said today that a successful phishing attack on one of its employees was used to launch additional phishing attacks against FS-ISAC members.

The fallout from the back-to-back phishing attacks appears to have been limited and contained, as many FS-ISAC members who received the phishing attack quickly detected and reported it as suspicious. But the incident is a good reminder to be on your guard, remember that anyone can get phished, and that most phishing attacks succeed by abusing the sense of trust already established between the sender and recipient.

How to Fight Mobile Number Port-out Scams

February 28, 2018
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T-Mobile, AT&T and other mobile carriers are reminding customers to take advantage of free services that can block identity thieves from easily “porting” your mobile number out to another provider, which allows crooks to intercept your calls and messages while your phone goes dark. Tips for minimizing the risk of number porting fraud are available below for customers of all four major mobile providers, including Sprint and Verizon.

Bot Roundup: Avalanche, Kronos, NanoCore

February 27, 2018
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It’s been a busy few weeks in cybercrime news, justifying updates to a couple of cases we’ve been following closely at KrebsOnSecurity. In Ukraine, the alleged ringleader of the Avalanche malware spam botnet was arrested after eluding authorities in the wake of a global cybercrime crackdown there in 2016. Separately, a case that was hailed as a test of whether programmers can be held accountable for how customers use their product turned out poorly for 27-year-old programmer Taylor Huddleston, who was sentenced to almost three years in prison for making and marketing a complex spyware program.