Krebs on Security

Tax Fraud Advice, Straight from the Scammers

March 25, 2015

Some of the most frank and useful information about how to fight fraud comes directly from the mouths of the crooks themselves. Online cybercrime forums play a critical role here, allowing thieves to compare notes about how to evade new security roadblocks and steer clear of fraud tripwires. And few topics so reliably generate discussion on crime forums around this time of year as tax return fraud, as we’ll see in the conversations highlighted in this post.

File ’em Before the Bad Guys Can

As several stories these past few months have noted, those involved in tax refund fraud shifted more of their activities away from the Internal Revenue Service and toward state tax filings. This shift is broadly reflected in discussions on several fraud forums from 2014, in which members lament the apparent introduction of new fraud “filters” by the IRS that reportedly made perpetrating this crime at the federal level more challenging for some scammers.

One outspoken and unrepentant tax fraudster — a ne’er-do-well using the screen name “Peleus” — reported that he had far more luck filing phony returns at the state level last year. Peleus posted the following experience to a popular fraud forum in February 2014:

“Just wanted to share a bit of my results to see if everyone is doing so bad or it just me…Federal this year has been a pain in the ass. I have about 35 applications made for federal with only 2 paid refunds…I started early in January (15-20) on TT [TurboTax] and HR [H&R Block] and made about 35 applications on Federal and State..My stats are as follows:

Federal: 35 applications (less than 10% approval rate) – average per return $2500

State: 35 apps – 15 approved (average per return $1600). State works just as great as last year, their approval rate is nearly 50% and processing time no more than 10 – 12 days.

I know that the IRS has new check filters this year but federals suck big time this year, i only got 2 refunds approved from 35 applications …all my federals are between $2300 – $2600 which is the average refund amount in the US so i wouldn’t raise any flags…I also put a small yearly salary like 25-30k….All this precautions and my results still suck big time compared to last year when i had like 30%- 35% approval rate …what the fuck changed this year? Do they check the EIN from last year’s return so you need his real employer information?”

A seasoned tax return fraudster discusses strategy.

Several seasoned members of this fraud forum responded that the IRS had indeed become more strict in validating whether the W2 information supplied by the filer had the proper Employer Identification Number (EIN), a unique tax ID number assigned to each company. The fraudsters then proceeded to discuss various ways to mine social networking sites like LinkedIn for victims’ employer information.

GET YER EINs HERE

A sidebar is probably in order here. EINs are not exactly state secrets. Public companies publish their EINs on the first page of their annual 10-K filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Still, EINs for millions of small companies here in the United States are not so easy to find, and many small business owners probably treat this information as confidential.

Nevertheless, a number of organizations specialize in selling access to EINs. One of the biggest is Dun & Bradstreet, which, as I detailed in a 2013 exposé, Data Broker Giants Hacked by ID Theft Service, was compromised for six months by a service selling Social Security numbers and other data to identity thieves like Peleus.

Last year, I heard from a source close to the investigation into the Dun & Bradstreet breach who said the thieves responsible made off with more than six million EINs. In December 2014, I asked Dun &Bradstreet about the veracity of this claim, and received a blanket statement that did not address the six million figure, but stressed that EINs are not personally identifiable information and are available to the public. Continue reading →

Kreditech Investigates Insider Breach

March 24, 2015

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Kreditech, a consumer finance startup that specializes in lending to “unbanked” consumers with little or no credit rating, is investigating a data breach that came to light after malicious hackers posted thousands of applicants’ personal and financial records online.

A screen shot of the Tor site that links to the documents stolen from Kreditech.

Earlier this month, a source pointed KrebsOnSecurity to a Web site reachable only via Tor, a software package that directs Internet traffic through a free, global network of relays. That page, pictured in screen shot to the right, included links to countless documents, scanned passports, drivers licenses, national IDs and credit agreements apparently taken from Kreditech’s servers.

The site announced that a group of hackers calling itself “A4” put the information online after finding “hundreds of gigabytes” of Kreditech’s documents, including what appear to be configuration files from the company’s Intranet and internal servers.

“The company, getting multimillion investments, probably decided to spend them for anything but security of their clients’ data,” the hacker group wrote. “As explain by a member of A4, not that the company’s security is at a low level, it is absent as such.All data to which the group А4 got access will be put online in open access although its curb price is rather considerable.”

Anna Friedrich, head of communications at the Hamburg, Germany-based lender, acknowledged that the company had an “isolated internal security incident” in November 2014, and that Hamburg police are investigating.

Friedrich said Kreditech believes the data was stolen not from customers but only from credit applicants. She added that Kreditech believes the information was leaked from within by someone who worked at the company — although she declined to say whether the suspect was a current or former employee.

“There is no access to any customer data,” Friedrich said. “This incident stemmed from a form on our Web site that was stored data in a caching system that deleted data every few days. What happened was that a subset of application data was affected. We are collaborating with the police, but unfortunately there is no more further information that I have to share. ”

Corey Wells, the 19-year-old security researcher from West Virginia who alerted this author to the compromise, said he discovered the breach after building a crawler to identify and index Web sites on the Tor network.

The hacker group didn’t say how it obtained the documents. Wells said the leaked data includes raw logs from a system that appears to have been running MongoDB, a cross-platform document-oriented database. Those logs include a date and time stamp of Aug. 19. 2014, suggesting the breach may have started seven months ago. Continue reading →

Hilton Honors Flaw Exposed All Accounts

March 23, 2015

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Hospitality giant Hilton Hotels & Resorts recently started offering Hilton HHonors Awards members 1,000 free awards points to those who agreed to change their passwords for the online service prior to April 1, 2015, when the company said the change would become mandatory. Ironically, that same campaign led to the discovery of a simple yet powerful flaw in the site that let anyone hijack a Hilton Honors account just by knowing or guessing its valid 9-digit Hilton Honors account number.

Until it was notified by KrebsOnSecurity about a dangerous flaw in its site, Hilton was offering 1,000 points to customers who changed their passwords before April 1, 2015.

The vulnerability was uncovered by Brandon Potter and JB Snyder, technical security consultant and founder, respectively, at security consulting and testing firm Bancsec. The two found that once they’d logged into a Hilton Honors account, they could hijack any other account just by knowing its account number. All it took was a small amount of changing the site’s HTML content and then reloading the page.

After that, they could see and do everything available to the legitimate holder of that account, such as changing the account password; viewing past and upcoming travel; redeeming Hilton Honors points for travel or hotel reservations worldwide; or having the points sent as cash to prepaid credit cards or transferred to other Hilton Honors accounts. The vulnerability also exposed the customer’s email address, physical address and the last four digits of any credit card on file.

I saw this vulnerability in action after giving Snyder and Potter my own Hilton Honors account number, and seconds later seeing screen shots of them logged into my account. Hours after this author alerted Hilton of the discovery, the Hilton Honors site temporarily stopped allowing users to reset their passwords. The flaw they discovered now appears to be fixed.

“Hilton Worldwide recently confirmed a vulnerability on a section of our Hilton HHonors website, and we took immediate action to remediate the vulnerability,” Hilton wrote in an emailed statement. “As always, we encourage Hilton HHonors members to review their accounts and update their online passwords regularly as a precaution. Hilton Worldwide takes information security very seriously and we are committed to safeguarding our guests’ personal information.” Continue reading →

Convicted Tax Fraudster & Fugitive Caught

March 19, 2015

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Lance Ealy, an Ohio man who fled home confinement last year just prior to his conviction on charges of filing phony tax refund requests on more than 150 Americans, was apprehended in a pre-dawn raid by federal marshals in Atlanta on Wednesday.

Lance Ealy, in self-portrait he uploaded to twitter before absconding.

Ealy, 28, of Dayton, Ohio, was the subject of no fewer than three previous posts on this blog. Ealy reached out to me in February 2014, after being arrested by the U.S. Secret Service for using his email account to purchase Social Security numbers and other personal information from an online identity theft service run by a guy named Hieu Minh Ngo.

Ngo is a Vietnamese national who, for several years, ran an online identity theft service called Superget.info. Shortly after my 2011 initial story about his service, Ngo tauntingly renamed his site to findget.me. The Secret Service took him up on that challenge, and succeeded in luring him out of Vietnam into Guam, where he was arrested and brought to New Hampshire for trial. He pleaded guilty last year to running the ID theft service, and the government has been working on rounding up his customers ever since.

Mr. Ealy was one of several individuals found guilty of identity theft charges after buying from Ngo’s service, which relied in part on data obtained through a company owned by big-three credit bureau Experian.

After being indicted on 46 counts of fraudulent activity, Ealy fired his attorney and chose to represent himself in court. In mid-November 2014 — just days before the jury in his trial was to issue its guilty verdict — Ealy slipped his ankle monitor and skipped town, but not before posting a taunting selfie to his Twitter account.

In the four months since his disappearance, investigators caught glimpses of Ealy jumping online as he made his way south to Atlanta. Incredibly, Ealy took time to file several lengthy pro se legal arguments (PDF) stating why the judge in the case was not impartial and that he deserved a retrial. When federal officials prosecuting his case responded (PDF) incredulously to his request, Ealy took it upon himself to file a response (PDF) to their motion for dismissal — all while on the lam.

Investigators close to the case say Ealy continued filing false tax refund requests while on the run from the law. But instead of turning to an underground identity theft service as he did previously, investigators say Ealy appears to have paid numerous inmates serving time in Ohio prisons for permission to file tax refund requests on their behalf with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — topping up the inmates’ commissary funds to the tune of $100 per filing while pocketing the rest of the fraudulent refunds.

According to whio.com, Ealy remains in the Northern District of Georgia until he can be extradited.

OpenSSL Patch to Plug Severe Security Holes

March 18, 2015

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The world is about to get another reminder about just how much of the Internet runs on technology maintained by a handful of coders working on a shoestring budget. OpenSSL — the software used by thousands of companies to encrypt online communications — is set to get a security makeover this week: The OpenSSL project said it plans to release new versions of its code to fix a number of security weaknesses, including some classified as “high” severity.

OpenSSL is deployed at countless organizations, including at Web giants like Facebook, Google and Yahoo — as well as broadly across U.S. federal government networks. As its name suggests, OpenSSL implements Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption (also known as “transport layer security” or TLS) for Web sites and associated networks, ensuring that the data cannot be read by untrusted parties.

The patch is likely to set off a mad scramble by security teams at organizations that rely on OpenSSL. That’s because security updates — particularly those added to open-source software like OpenSSL that anyone can view — give cybercriminals a road map toward finding out where the fixed vulnerabilities lie and insight into how to exploit those flaws.

Indeed, while the OpenSSL project plans to issue the updates on Thursday, Mar. 19, the organization isn’t pre-releasing any details about the fixes. Steve Marquess, a founding partner at the OpenSSL Software Foundation, said that information will only be shared in advance with the major operating system vendors.

“We’d like to let everyone know so they can be prepared and so forth, but we have been slowly driven to a pretty brutal policy of no [advance] disclosure,” Marquess said. “One of our main revenue sources is support contracts, and we don’t even give them advance notice.”

Advance notice helps not only defenders, but attackers as well. Last year, ne’er-do-wells pounced on Heartbleed, the nickname given to an extremely critical flaw in OpenSSL that allowed anyone to extract passwords, cookies and other sensitive data from servers that were running vulnerable versions of OpenSSL. This Heartbleed disclosure timeline explains a great deal about how that process unfolded in a less-than-ideal manner. Continue reading →

Dark Web’s ‘Evolution Market’ Vanishes

March 18, 2015

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The Evolution Market, an online black market that sells everything contraband — from marijuana, heroin and ecstasy to stolen identities and malicious hacking services — appears to have vanished in the last 24 hours with little warning. Much to the chagrin of countless merchants hawking their wares in the underground market, the curators of the project have reportedly absconded with the community’s bitcoins — a stash that some Evolution merchants reckon is worth more than USD $12 million.

The “Fraud Related” section of the Evolution Market before it vanished.

Reachable only via the Tor network (a.k.a. the “dark web” or “darknet”), Evolution Market quickly emerged as the go-to online bazaar for buyers and sellers of illicit goods following the shutdown of the infamous Silk Road marketplaces in 2013 and again late last year.

Evolution operates on an escrow system, allowing buyers and sellers to more confidently and successfully consummate sales of dodgy goods. But that means the market’s administrators at any given time have direct access to a tempting amount of virtually untraceable currency.

Denizens of the darkweb community say the moderators in charge of Evolution (known as just “Evo” by vendors and buyers alike) had in the past few days instituted long delays in responding to and processing withdrawal requests from the marketplace’s myriad vendors.

According to chatter from the Evolution discussion page on Reddit, Evo’s administrators — who go by the handles “Kimble” and “Verto” — initially blamed the delays on an unexpected influx of huge withdrawal requests that the community’s coffers could not satisfy all at once. The administrators assured anxious vendors that the issue would be resolved within 24 hours.

But before that 24 hours could elapse, the Evo community — its marketplace and user discussion forum — went offline. Now, volunteer moderators from those communities are posting to Reddit that the administrators have “exit scammed,” — essentially taken all the money and run. Continue reading →

Premera Blue Cross Breach Exposes Financial, Medical Records

March 17, 2015

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Premera Blue Cross, a major provider of health care services, disclosed today that an intrusion into its network may have resulted in the breach of financial and medical records of 11 million customers. Although Premera isn’t saying so just yet, there are indicators that this intrusion is once again the work of state-sponsored espionage groups based in China.

In a statement posted on a Web site set up to share information about the breach — premeraupdate.com — the company said that it learned about the attack on January 29, 2015. Premera said its investigation revealed that the initial attack occurred on May 5, 2014.

“This incident affected Premera Blue Cross, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, and our affiliate brands Vivacity and Connexion Insurance Solutions, Inc,” the company said. Their statement continues:

“Our investigation determined that the attackers may have gained unauthorized access to applicants and members’ information, which could include member name, date of birth, email address, address, telephone number, Social Security number, member identification numbers, bank account information, and claims information, including clinical information. This incident also affected members of other Blue Cross Blue Shield plans who sought treatment in Washington or Alaska.

“Individuals who do business with us and provided us with their email address, personal bank account number or social security number are also affected. The investigation has not determined that any such data was removed from our systems. We also have no evidence to date that such data has been used inappropriately.”

Premera said it will be notifying affected customers in letters sent out via postal mail, and that it will be offering two years of free credit monitoring services through big-three credit bureau Experian.

ANOTHER STATE-SPONSORED ATTACK?

The health care provider said it is working with security firm Mandiant and the FBI in the investigation. Mandiant specializes in tracking and blocking attacks from state-sponsored hacking groups, particularly those based in China. Asked about clues that would suggest a possible actor involved in the breach, Premera deferred to the FBI.

An official with the FBI’s Seattle field office confirmed that the agency is investigating, but declined to discuss details of its findings thus far, citing “the ongoing nature of the investigation.”

“Cybercrime remains a significant threat and the FBI will continue to devote substantial resources and efforts to bringing cyber criminals to justice,” the FBI said in an emailed statement.

There are indications that this may be the work of the Chinese espionage group tied to the breach disclosed earlier this year at Anthem, an intrusion that affected some 78 million Americans. Continue reading →

Door Skimmer + Hidden Camera = Profit

March 17, 2015

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If an ATM you’d like to use is enclosed in a vestibule that requires a card swipe at the door, it might be a good idea to go find another machine, or at least use something other than a payment card to gain entry. Thieves frequently add skimmers to these key card locks and then hide cameras above or beside such ATMs, allowing them to steal your PIN and card data without ever actually tampering with the cash machine itself.

One recent skimming incident began when fraudsters placed a card skimmer directly on top of this key card “dip” device, which managed access to a bank ATM vestibule:

Locks secured by mag stripe readers typically aren’t very discriminating or physically secure.

The attackers in this incident then placed a hidden camera in a false panel above the ATM.

A tiny pinhole lets the hidden video camera record customers entering their PINs.

Here’s the backside of the phony door card reader the thieves placed on top of the legitimate card reader: Continue reading →

‘AntiDetect’ Helps Thieves Hide Digital Fingerprints

March 16, 2015

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As a greater number of banks in the United States shift to issuing more secure credit and debit cards with embedded chip technology, fraudsters are going to direct more of their attacks against online merchants. No surprise, then, that thieves increasingly are turning to an emerging set of software tools to help them evade fraud detection schemes employed by many e-commerce companies.

Every browser has a relatively unique “fingerprint” that is shared with Web sites. That signature is derived from dozens of qualities, including the computer’s operating system type, various plugins installed, the browser’s language setting and its time zone. Banks can leverage fingerprinting to flag transactions that occur from a browser the bank has never seen associated with a customer’s account.

Payment service providers and online stores often use browser fingerprinting to block transactions from browsers that have previously been associated with unauthorized sales (or a high volume of sales for the same or similar product in a short period of time).

In January, several media outlets wrote about a crimeware tool called FraudFox, which is marketed as a way to help crooks sidestep browser fingerprinting. However, FraudFox is merely the latest competitor to emerge in a fairly established marketplace of tools aimed at helping thieves cash out stolen cards at online merchants.

Another fraudster-friendly tool that’s been around the underground hacker forums even longer is called Antidetect. Currently in version 6.0.0.1, Antidetect allows users to very quickly and easily change components of the their system to avoid browser fingerprinting, including the browser type (Safari, IE, Chrome, etc.), version, language, user agent, Adobe Flash version, number and type of other plugins, as well as operating system settings such as OS and processor type, time zone and screen resolution.

Antidetect is marketed to fraudsters involved in ripping off online stores.

The seller of this product shared the video below of someone using Antidetect along with a stolen credit card to buy three different downloadable software titles from gaming giant Origin.com. That video has been edited for brevity and to remove sensitive information; my version also includes captions to describe what’s going on throughout the video. Continue reading →

Adobe Flash Update Plugs 11 Security Holes

March 12, 2015

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Adobe has released an update for its Flash Player software that fixes at least 11 separate, critical security vulnerabilities in the program. If you have Flash installed, please take a moment to ensure your systems are updated.

Not sure whether your browser has Flash installed or what version it may be running? Browse to this link. The newest, patched version is 17.0.0.134 for Windows and Mac users. Adobe Flash Player installed with Google Chrome, as well as Internet Explorer on Windows 8.x, should automatically update to version 17.0.0.134.

The most recent versions of Flash should be available from the Flash home page, but beware potentially unwanted add-ons, like McAfee Security Scan. To avoid this, uncheck the pre-checked box before downloading, or grab your OS-specific Flash download from here. Windows users who browse the Web with anything other than Internet Explorer may need to apply this patch twice, once with IE and again using the alternative browser (Firefox, Opera, e.g.).

The last few Flash updates from Adobe have been in response to zero-day threats targeting previously unknown vulnerabilities in the program. But Adobe says it is not aware of any exploits in the wild for the issues addressed in this update. Adobe’s advisory on this patch is available here.

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