Category Archives: A Little Sunshine

Includes investigative blog posts meant to shine a light on the darker corners of the Internet.

Seleznev Arrest Explains ‘2Pac’ Downtime

October 15, 2014

The U.S. Justice Department has piled on more charges against alleged cybercrime kingpin Roman Seleznev, a Russian national who made headlines in July when it emerged that he’d been whisked away to Guam by U.S. federal agents while vacationing in the Maldives. The additional charges against Seleznev may help explain the extended downtime at an extremely popular credit card fraud shop in the cybercrime underground.

Huge Data Leak at Largest U.S. Bond Insurer

October 7, 2014

On Monday, KrebsOnSecurity notified the Municipal Bond Insurance Association — the nation’s largest bond insurer — that a misconfiguration in a company Web server had exposed countless customer account numbers, balances and other sensitive data. Much of the information had been indexed by search engines, including a page listing administrative credentials that attackers could use to access data that wasn’t already accessible via a simple Web search.

Signature Systems Breach Expands

September 26, 2014

Signature Systems Inc., the point-of-sale vendor blamed for a credit and debit card breach involving some 216 Jimmy John’s sandwich shop locations, now says the breach also may have jeopardized customer card numbers at nearly 100 other independent restaurants across the country that use its products.

Who’s Behind the Bogus $49.95 Charges?

September 22, 2014

Hardly a week goes by when I don’t hear from a reader wondering about the origins of a bogus credit card charge for $49.95 or some similar amount for a product they never ordered. As this post will explain, such charges appear to be the result of crooks trying to game various online affiliate programs by using stolen credit cards.

Medical Records For Sale in Underground Stolen From Texas Life Insurance Firm

September 18, 2014

How much are your medical records worth in the cybercrime underground? This week, KrebsOnSecurity discovered medical records being sold in bulk for as little as $6.40 apiece. The digital documents, several of which were obtained by sources working with this publication, were stolen from a Texas-based life insurance company that now says it is working with federal authorities on an investigation into an apparent data breach.

LinkedIn Feature Exposes Email Addresses

September 15, 2014

One of the risks of using social media networks is having information you intend to share with only a handful of friends be made available to everyone. Sometimes that over-sharing happens because friends betray your trust, but more worrisome are the cases in which a social media platform itself exposes your data in the name of marketing.