Tyler Raj Barriss, a 25-year-old serial “swatter” whose phony emergency call to Kansas police last month triggered a fatal shooting, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and faces up to eleven years in prison.
Canadian authorities have arrested and charged a 27-year-old Ontario man for allegedly selling billions of stolen passwords online through the now-defunct service Leakedsource.com.
KrebsOnSecurity heard from a reader whose friend recently received a remarkably customized extortion letter via snail mail that threatened to tell the recipient’s wife about his supposed extramarital affairs unless he paid $3,600 in bitcoin. The friend said he had nothing to hide and suspects this is part of a random but well-crafted campaign to prey on men who may have a guilty conscience.
Microsoft on Tuesday released 14 security updates, including fixes for the Spectre and Meltdown flaws detailed last week, as well as a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Office that is being exploited in the wild. Separately, Adobe pushed a security update to its Flash Player software.
Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) just fixed a serious glitch in the Coinbase bitcoin payment section of its site that allowed customers to buy any item at a tiny fraction of the listed price. Potentially more punishing, the flaw let anyone paying with bitcoin reap many times the authorized bitcoin refund amount on any canceled orders.
Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech giants have released updates for a pair of serious security flaws present in most modern computers, smartphones, tablets and mobile devices. Here’s a brief rundown on the threat and what you can do to protect your devices.
The individual who allegedly made a fake emergency call to Kansas police last week that summoned them to shoot and kill an unarmed local man has claimed credit for raising dozens of these dangerous false alarms — calling in bogus hostage situations and bomb threats at roughly 100 schools and at least 10 residences.
A 28-year-old Kansas man was shot and killed by police officers on the evening of Dec. 28 after someone fraudulently reported a hostage situation ongoing at his home. The false report was the latest in a dangerous hoax known as “swatting,” wherein the perpetrator falsely reports a dangerous situation at an address with the goal of prompting authorities to respond to that address with deadly force. This particular swatting reportedly originated over a $1.50 wagered match in the online game Call of Duty. Compounding the tragedy is that the man killed was an innocent party who had no part in the dispute.
The following is an analysis of what is known so far about the incident, as well as a brief interview with the alleged and self-professed perpetrator of this crime.
Eight years ago today I set aside my Washington Post press badge and became an independent here at KrebsOnSecurity.com. What a wild ride it has been. Thank you all, Dear Readers, for sticking with me and for helping to build a terrific community.
Dec. 18 marked the fourth anniversary of this site breaking the news about a breach at Target involving some 40 million customer credit and debit cards. It has been fascinating in the years since that epic intrusion to see how organized cyber thieves have shifted from targeting big box retailers to hacking a broad swath of small to mid-sized merchants that accept credit cards.
