Category Archives: The Coming Storm

This category includes blog posts about computer and Internet security threats now and on the horizon.

Microsoft: Happy 2025. Here’s 161 Security Updates

January 14, 2025

Microsoft today unleashed updates to plug a whopping 161 security vulnerabilities in Windows and related software, including three “zero-day” weaknesses that are already under active attack. Redmond’s inaugural Patch Tuesday of 2025 bundles more fixes than the company has shipped in one go since 2017.

A Day in the Life of a Prolific Voice Phishing Crew

January 7, 2025

Besieged by scammers seeking to phish user accounts over the telephone, Apple and Google frequently caution that they will never reach out unbidden to users this way. However, new details about the internal operations of a prolific voice phishing gang show the group routinely abuses legitimate services at Apple and Google to force a variety of outbound communications to their users, including emails, automated phone calls and system-level messages sent to all signed-in devices.

Web Hacking Service ‘Araneida’ Tied to Turkish IT Firm

December 19, 2024

Cybercriminals are selling hundreds of thousands of credential sets stolen with the help of a cracked version of Acunetix, a powerful commercial web app vulnerability scanner, new research finds. The cracked software is being resold as a cloud-based attack tool by at least two different services, one of which KrebsOnSecurity traced to an information technology firm based in Turkey.

Hacker in Snowflake Extortions May Be a U.S. Soldier

November 26, 2024

Two men have been arrested for allegedly stealing data from and extorting dozens of companies that used the cloud data storage company Snowflake, but a third suspect — a prolific hacker known as Kiberphant0m — remains at large and continues to publicly extort victims. However, this person’s identity may not remain a secret for long: A careful review of Kiberphant0m’s daily chats across multiple cybercrime personas suggests they are a U.S. Army soldier who is or was recently stationed in South Korea.

Fintech Giant Finastra Investigating Data Breach

November 19, 2024

The financial technology firm Finastra is investigating the alleged large-scale theft of information from its internal file transfer platform, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Finastra, which provides software and services to 45 of the world’s top 50 banks, notified customers of a potential breach after a cybercriminal began selling more than 400 gigabytes of data purportedly stolen from the company. 

FBI: Spike in Hacked Police Emails, Fake Subpoenas

November 9, 2024

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is urging police departments and governments worldwide to beef up security around their email systems, citing a recent increase in cybercriminal services that use hacked police email accounts to send unauthorized subpoenas and customer data requests to U.S.-based technology companies.

Booking.com Phishers May Leave You With Reservations

November 1, 2024

A number of cybercriminal innovations are making it easier for scammers to cash in on your upcoming travel plans. This story examines a recent spear-phishing campaign that ensued when a California hotel had its booking.com credentials stolen. We’ll also explore an array of cybercrime services aimed at phishers who target hotels that rely on the world’s most visited travel website.

Change Healthcare Breach Hits 100M Americans

October 30, 2024

Change Healthcare says it has notified approximately 100 million Americans that their personal, financial and healthcare records may have been stolen in a February 2024 ransomware attack that caused the largest ever known data breach of protected health information.

The Global Surveillance Free-for-All in Mobile Ad Data

October 23, 2024

Not long ago, the ability to remotely track someone’s daily movements just by knowing their home address, employer, or place of worship was considered a powerful surveillance tool that should only be in the purview of nation states. But a new lawsuit in a likely constitutional battle over a New Jersey privacy law shows that anyone can now access this capability, thanks to a proliferation of commercial services that hoover up the digital exhaust emitted by widely-used mobile apps and websites.