Facebook Security Bug Affects 90M Users

September 28, 2018
61 Comments

Facebook said today some 90 million of its users may get forcibly logged out of their accounts after the company fixed a rather glaring security vulnerability in its Web site that may have let attackers hijack user profiles.

In a short blog post published this afternoon, Facebook said hackers have been exploiting a vulnerability in Facebook’s site code that impacted a feature called “View As,” which lets users see how their profile appears to other people.

“This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts,” Facebook wrote. “Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.”

Facebook said it was removing the insecure “View As” feature, and resetting the access tokens of 50 million accounts that the company said it knows were affected, as well as the tokens for another 40 million users that may have been impacted over the past year.

The company said it was just beginning its investigation, and that it doesn’t yet know some basic facts about the incident, such as whether these accounts were misused, if any private information was accessed, or who might be responsible for these attacks.

Although Facebook didn’t mention this in their post, one other major unanswered question about this incident is whether the access tokens could have let attackers interactively log in to third-party sites as the user. Tens of thousands of Web sites let users log in using nothing more than their Facebook profile credentials. If users have previously logged in at third-party sites using their Facebook profile, there’s a good chance the attackers could have had access to those third-party sites as well.

I have asked for clarification from Facebook on this point and will update this post when and if I receive a response. However, I would have expected Facebook to mention this as a mitigating factor if authorized logins at third-party sites were not impacted.

Update: 4:46 p.m. ET: A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that while it was technically possible that an attacker could have abused this bug to target third-party apps and sites that use Facebook logins, the company doesn’t have any evidence so far that this has happened.

“We have invalidated data access for third-party apps for the affected individuals,” the spokesperson said, referring to the 90 million accounts that were forcibly logged out today and presented with a notification about the incident at the top of their feed.

Original story:
Facebook says there is no need for users to reset their passwords as a result of this breach, although that is certainly an option.

More importantly, it’s a good idea for all Facebook users to review their login activity. This page should let you view which devices are logged in to your account and approximately where in the world those devices are at the moment. That page also has an option to force a simultaneous logout of all devices connected to your account.

Secret Service Warns of Surge in ATM ‘Wiretapping’ Attacks

September 27, 2018
82 Comments

The U.S. Secret Service is warning financial institutions about a recent uptick in a form of ATM skimming that involves cutting cupcake-sized holes in a cash machine and then using a combination of magnets and medical devices to siphon customer account data directly from the card reader inside the ATM.

According to a non-public alert distributed to banks this week and shared with KrebsOnSecurity by a financial industry source, the Secret Service has received multiple reports about a complex form of skimming that often takes thieves days to implement.

This type of attack, sometimes called ATM “wiretapping” or “eavesdropping,” starts when thieves use a drill to make a relatively large hole in the front of a cash machine. The hole is then concealed by a metal faceplate, or perhaps a decal featuring the bank’s logo or boilerplate instructions on how to use the ATM.

A thin metal faceplate is often used to conceal the hole drilled into the front of the ATM. The PIN pad shield pictured here is equipped with a hidden spy camera.

Skimmer thieves will fish the card skimming device through the hole and attach it to the internal card reader via a magnet.

Thieves often use a magnet to secure their card skimmer in place above the ATM’s internal card reader. Image: U.S. Secret Service.

Very often the fraudsters will be assisted in the skimmer installation by an endoscope, a slender, flexible instrument traditionally used in medicine to give physicians a look inside the human body. By connecting a USB-based endoscope to his smart phone, the intruder can then peek inside the ATM and ensure that his skimmer is correctly attached to the card reader. Continue reading →

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Beware of Hurricane Florence Relief Scams

September 24, 2018
32 Comments

If you’re thinking of donating money to help victims of Hurricane Florence, please do your research on the charitable entity before giving: A slew of new domains apparently related to Hurricane Florence relief efforts are now accepting donations on behalf of victims without much accountability for how the money will be spent.

For the past two weeks, KrebsOnSecurity has been monitoring dozens of new domain name registrations that include the terms “hurricane” and/or “florence” and some word related to support (e.g., “relief,” “assistance,” etc.). Most of these domains have remained parked or dormant since their creation earlier this month; however, several of them became active only in the past few days, directing visitors to donate money through private PayPal accounts without providing any information about who is running the site or what will be done with donated funds.

The landing page for hurricaneflorencerelieffund-dot-com also is the landing page for at least 4 other Hurricane Florence donation sites that use the same anonymous PayPal address.

Among the earliest of these is hurricaneflorencerelieffund-dot-com, registered anonymously via GoDaddy on Sept. 13, 2018. Donations sent through the site’s PayPal page go to an email address tied to the PayPal account on the site (info@hurricaneflorencerelieffund-dot-com); emails to that address did not elicit a response.

Sometime in the past few days, several other Florence-related domains that were previous parked at GoDaddy now redirect to this domain, including hurricanflorence-dot-org (note the missing “e”); florencedisaster-dot-org; florencefunds-dot-com; and hurricaneflorencedonation-dot-com. All of these domains include the phone number 833-FLO-FUND, which rings to an automated system that ultimately asks the caller to leave a message. There is no information provided about the organization or individual running the sites.

The domain hurricaneflorencedisasterfund-dot-com has a slightly different look and feel, invokes the name of the Red Cross and also includes the 833-FLO-FUND number. Likewise, it accepts PayPal donations tied to the same email address mentioned above. It claims “80% of all donations go directly to FIRST RESPONDERS in North & South Carolina!” although it provides no clear way to verify that claim.

Hurricaneflorencedisasterfund-dot-com is one of several domains anonymously accepting PayPal donations, purportedly on behalf of Hurricane Florence victims.

The domain hurricaneflorencerelief-dot-fund, registered on Sept. 11, also accepts PayPal donations with minimal information about who might benefit from monies given. The site links to Facebook, Twitter and other social network accounts set up with the same name, although none of them appear to have any meaningful content. The email address tied to that PayPal account — hurricaneflorencerelief@gmail.com — did not respond to requests for comment.

The domain theflorencefund-dot-com until recently also accepted PayPal donations and had an associated Twitter account (now deleted), but that domain recently changed its homepage to include the message, “Due to the change in Florence’s path, we’re suspending our efforts.” Continue reading →

Credit Freezes are Free: Let the Ice Age Begin

September 21, 2018
90 Comments

It is now free in every U.S. state to freeze and unfreeze your credit file and that of your dependents, a process that blocks identity thieves and others from looking at private details in your consumer credit history. If you’ve been holding out because you’re not particularly worried about ID theft, here’s another reason to reconsider: The credit bureaus profit from selling copies of your file to others, so freezing your file also lets you deny these dinosaurs a valuable revenue stream.

Enacted in May 2018, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act rolls back some of the restrictions placed on banks in the wake of the Great Recession of the last decade. But it also includes a silver lining. Previously, states allowed the bureaus to charge a confusing range of fees for placing, temporarily thawing or lifting a credit freeze. Today, those fees no longer exist.

A security freeze essentially blocks any potential creditors from being able to view or “pull” your credit file, unless you affirmatively unfreeze or thaw your file beforehand. With a freeze in place on your credit file, ID thieves can apply for credit in your name all they want, but they will not succeed in getting new lines of credit in your name because few if any creditors will extend that credit without first being able to gauge how risky it is to loan to you (i.e., view your credit file).

And because each credit inquiry caused by a creditor has the potential to lower your credit score, the freeze also helps protect your score, which is what most lenders use to decide whether to grant you credit when you truly do want it and apply for it.

To file a freeze, consumers must contact each of the three major credit bureaus online, by phone or by mail. Here’s the updated contact information for the big three:

Online: Equifax Freeze Page
By phone: 800-685-1111
By Mail: Equifax Security Freeze
P.O. Box 105788
Atlanta, Georgia 30348-5788

Online: Experian
By phone: 888-397-3742
By Mail: Experian Security Freeze
P.O. Box 9554, Allen, TX 75013

Online: TransUnion
By Phone: 888-909-8872
By Mail: TransUnion LLC
P.O. Box 2000 Chester, PA 19016

Spouses may request freezes for each other by phone as long as they pass authentication.

The new law also makes it free to place, thaw and lift freezes for dependents under the age of 16, or for incapacitated adult family members. However, this process is not currently available online or by phone, as it requires parents/guardians to submit written documentation (“sufficient proof of authority”), such as a copy of a birth certificate and copy of a Social Security card issued by the Social Security Administration, or — in the case of an incapacitated family member — proof of power of attorney.

In addition, the law requires the big three bureaus to offer free electronic credit monitoring services to all active duty military personnel. It also changes the rules for “fraud alerts,” which currently are free but only last for 90 days. With a fraud alert on your credit file, lenders or service providers should not grant credit in your name without first contacting you to obtain your approval — by phone or whatever other method you specify when you apply for the fraud alert.

Another important change: Fraud alerts now last for one year (previously they lasted just 90 days) but consumers can renew them each year. Bear in mind, however, that while lenders and service providers are supposed to seek and obtain your approval before granting credit in your name if you have a fraud alert on your file, they’re not legally required to do this. Continue reading →

Mirai Botnet Authors Avoid Jail Time

September 19, 2018
65 Comments

Citing “extraordinary cooperation” with the government, a court in Alaska on Tuesday sentenced three men to probation, community service and fines for their admitted roles in authoring and using “Mirai,” a potent malware strain used in countless attacks designed to knock Web sites offline — including an enormously powerful attack in 2016 that sidelined this Web site for nearly four days.

The men — 22-year-old Paras Jha Fanwood, New Jersey,  Josiah White, 21 of Washington, Pa., and Dalton Norman from Metairie, La. — were each sentenced to five years probation, 2,500 hours of community service, and ordered to pay $127,000 in restitution for the damage caused by their malware.

Mirai enslaves poorly secured “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices like security cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs) and routers for use in large-scale online attacks.

Not long after Mirai first surfaced online in August 2016, White and Jha were questioned by the FBI about their suspected role in developing the malware. At the time, the men were renting out slices of their botnet to other cybercriminals.

Weeks later, the defendants sought to distance themselves from their creation by releasing the Mirai source code online. That action quickly spawned dozens of copycat Mirai botnets, some of which were used in extremely powerful denial-of-service attacks that often caused widespread collateral damage beyond their intended targets.

A depiction of the outages caused by the Mirai attacks on Dyn, an Internet infrastructure company. Source: Downdetector.com.

The source code release also marked a period in which the three men began using their botnet for far more subtle and less noisy criminal moneymaking schemes, including click fraud — a form of online advertising fraud that costs advertisers billions of dollars each year.

In September 2016, KrebsOnSecurity was hit with a record-breaking denial-of-service attack from tens of thousands of Mirai-infected devices, forcing this site offline for several days. Using the pseudonym “Anna_Senpai,” Jha admitted to a friend at the time that the attack on this site was paid for by a customer who rented tens of thousands of Mirai-infected systems from the trio.

In January 2017, KrebsOnSecurity published the results of a four-month investigation into Mirai which named both Jha and White as the likely co-authors of the malware.  Eleven months later, the U.S. Justice Department announced guilty pleas by Jha, White and Norman. Continue reading →

GovPayNow.com Leaks 14M+ Records

September 17, 2018
55 Comments

Government Payment Service Inc. — a company used by thousands of U.S. state and local governments to accept online payments for everything from traffic citations and licensing fees to bail payments and court-ordered fines — has leaked more than 14 million customer records dating back at least six years, including names, addresses, phone numbers and the last four digits of the payer’s credit card.

Indianapolis-based GovPayNet, doing business online as GovPayNow.com, serves approximately 2,300 government agencies in 35 states. GovPayNow.com displays an online receipt when citizens use it to settle state and local government fees and fines via the site. Until this past weekend it was possible to view millions of customer records simply by altering digits in the Web address displayed by each receipt.

On Friday, Sept. 14, KrebsOnSecurity alerted GovPayNet that its site was exposing at least 14 million customer receipts dating back to 2012. Two days later, the company said it had addressed “a potential issue.”

“GovPayNet has addressed a potential issue with our online system that allows users to access copies of their receipts, but did not adequately restrict access only to authorized recipients,” the company said in a statement provided to KrebsOnSecurity.

The statement continues:

“The company has no indication that any improperly accessed information was used to harm any customer, and receipts do not contain information that can be used to initiate a financial transaction. Additionally, most information in the receipts is a matter of public record that may be accessed through other means. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution and to maximize security for users, GovPayNet has updated this system to ensure that only authorized users will be able to view their individual receipts. We will continue to evaluate security and access to all systems and customer records.”

In January 2018, GovPayNet was acquired by Securus Technologies, a Carrollton, Texas- based company that provides telecommunications services to prisons and helps law enforcement personnel keep tabs on mobile devices used by former inmates.

Although its name may suggest otherwise, Securus does not have a great track record in securing data. In May 2018, the New York Times broke the news that Securus’ service for tracking the cell phones of convicted felons was being abused by law enforcement agencies to track the real-time location of mobile devices used by people who had only been suspected of committing a crime. The story observed that authorities could use the service to track the real-time location of nearly any mobile phone in North America.

Just weeks later, Motherboard reported that hackers had broken into Securus’ systems and stolen the online credentials for multiple law enforcement officials who used the company’s systems to track the location of suspects via their mobile phone number.

A story here on May 22 illustrated how Securus’ site appeared to allow anyone to reset the password of an authorized Securus user simply by guessing the answer to one of three pre-selected “security questions,” including “what is your pet name,” “what is your favorite color,” and “what town were you born in”. Much like GovPayNet, the Securus Web site seemed to have been erected sometime in the aughts and left to age ungracefully for years.

Choose wisely and you, too, could gain the ability to look up anyone’s precise mobile location.

Continue reading →

U.S. Mobile Giants Want to be Your Online Identity

September 12, 2018
101 Comments

The four major U.S. wireless carriers today detailed a new initiative that may soon let Web sites eschew passwords and instead authenticate visitors by leveraging data elements unique to each customer’s phone and mobile subscriber account, such as location, customer reputation, and physical attributes of the device. Here’s a look at what’s coming, and the potential security and privacy trade-offs of trusting the carriers to handle online authentication on your behalf.

Tentatively dubbed “Project Verify” and still in the private beta testing phase, the new authentication initiative is being pitched as a way to give consumers both a more streamlined method of proving one’s identity when creating a new account at a given Web site, as well as replacing passwords and one-time codes for logging in to existing accounts at participating sites.

Here’s a promotional and explanatory video about Project Verify produced by the Mobile Authentication Task Force, whose members include AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon:

The mobile companies say Project Verify can improve online authentication because they alone have access to several unique signals and capabilities that can be used to validate each customer and their mobile device(s). This includes knowing the approximate real-time location of the customer; how long they have been a customer and used the device in question; and information about components inside the customer’s phone that are only accessible to the carriers themselves, such as cryptographic signatures tied to the device’s SIM card.

The Task Force currently is working on building its Project Verify app into the software that gets pre-loaded onto mobile devices sold by the four major carriers. The basic idea is that third-party Web sites could let the app (and, by extension, the user’s mobile provider) handle the process of authenticating the user’s identity, at which point the app would interactively log the user in without the need of a username and password.

In another example, participating sites could use Project Verify to supplement or replace existing authentication processes, such as two-factor methods that currently rely on sending the user a one-time passcode via SMS/text messages, which can be intercepted by cybercrooks.

The carriers also are pitching their offering as a way for consumers to pre-populate data fields on a Web site — such as name, address, credit card number and other information typically entered when someone wants to sign up for a new user account at a Web site or make purchases online.

Johannes Jaskolski, general manager for Mobile Authentication Task Force and assistant vice president of identity security at AT&T, said the group is betting that Project Verify will be attractive to online retailers partly because it can help them capture more sign-ups and sales from users who might otherwise balk at having to manually provide lots of data via a mobile device.

“We can be a primary authenticator where, just by authenticating to our app, you can then use that service,” Jaskolski said. “That can be on your mobile, but it could also be on another device. With subscriber consent, we can populate that information and make it much more effortless to sign up for or sign into services online. In other markets, we have found this type of approach reduced [customer] fall-out rates, so it can make third-party businesses more successful in capturing that.”

Jaskolski said customers who take advantage of Project Verify will be able to choose what types of data get shared between their wireless provider and a Web site on a per-site basis, or opt to share certain data elements across the board with sites that leverage the app for authentication and e-commerce.

“Many companies already rely on the mobile device today in their customer authentication flows, but what we’re saying is there’s going to be a better way to do this in a method that is intended from the start to serve authentication use cases,” Jaskolski said. “This is what everyone has been seeking from us already in co-opting other mobile features that were simply never designed for authentication.” Continue reading →

Patch Tuesday, September 2018 Edition

September 11, 2018
26 Comments

Adobe and Microsoft today each released patches to fix serious security holes in their software. Adobe pushed out a new version of its beleaguered Flash Player browser plugin. Redmond issued updates to address at least 61 distinct vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and related programs, including several flaws that were publicly detailed prior to today and one “zero-day” bug in Windows that is already being actively exploited by attackers.

As per usual, the bulk of the fixes from Microsoft tackle security weaknesses in the company’s Web browsers, Internet Explorer and Edge. Patches also are available for Windows, Office, Sharepoint, and the .NET Framework, among other components.

Of the 61 bugs fixed in this patch batch, 17 earned Microsoft’s “critical” rating, meaning malware or miscreants could use them to break into Windows computers with little or no help from users.

The zero-day flaw, CVE-2018-8440, affects Microsoft operating systems from Windows 7 through Windows 10 and allows a program launched by a restricted Windows user to gain more powerful administrative access on the system. It was first publicized August 27 in a (now deleted) Twitter post that linked users to proof-of-concept code hosted on Github. Since then, security experts have spotted versions of the code being used in active attacks.

According to security firm Ivanti, prior to today bad guys got advance notice about three vulnerabilities in Windows targeted by these patches. The first, CVE-2018-8457, is a critical memory corruption issue that could be exploited through a malicious Web site or Office file. CVE-2018-8475 is a critical bug in most supported versions of Windows that can be used for nasty purposes by getting a user to view a specially crafted image file. The third previously disclosed flaw, CVE-2018-8409, is a somewhat less severe “denial-of-service” vulnerability. Continue reading →

In a Few Days, Credit Freezes Will Be Fee-Free

September 10, 2018
61 Comments

Later this month, all of the three major consumer credit bureaus will be required to offer free credit freezes to all Americans and their dependents. Maybe you’ve been holding off freezing your credit file because your home state currently charges a fee for placing or thawing a credit freeze, or because you believe it’s just not worth the hassle. If that accurately describes your views on the matter, this post may well change your mind.

A credit freeze — also known as a “security freeze” — restricts access to your credit file, making it far more difficult for identity thieves to open new accounts in your name.

Currently, many states allow the big three bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — to charge a fee for placing or lifting a security freeze. But thanks to a federal law enacted earlier this year, after Sept. 21, 2018 it will be free to freeze and unfreeze your credit file and those of your children or dependents throughout the United States.

KrebsOnSecurity has for many years urged readers to freeze their files with the big three bureaus, as well as with a distant fourth — Innovis — and the NCTUE, an Equifax-operated credit checking clearinghouse relied upon by most of the major mobile phone providers.

There are dozens of private companies that specialize in providing consumer credit reports and scores to specific industries, including real estate brokers, landlords, insurers, debt buyers, employers, banks, casinos and retail stores. A handy PDF produced earlier this year by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) lists all of the known entities that maintain, sell or share credit data on U.S. citizens.

The CFPB’s document includes links to Web sites for 46 different consumer credit reporting entities, along with information about your legal rights to obtain data in your reports and dispute suspected inaccuracies with the companies as needed. My guess is the vast majority of Americans have never heard of most of these companies.

Via numerous front-end Web sites, each of these mini credit bureaus serve thousands or tens of thousands of people who work in the above mentioned industries and who have the ability to pull credit and other personal data on Americans. In many cases, online access to look up data through these companies is secured by nothing more than a username and password that can be stolen or phished by cybercrooks and abused to pull privileged information on consumers.

In other cases, it’s trivial for anyone to sign up for these services. For example, how do companies that provide background screening and credit report data to landlords decide who can sign up as a landlord? Answer: Anyone can be a landlord (or pretend to be one).

SCORE ONE FOR FREEZES

The truly scary part? Access to some of these credit lookup services is supposed to be secured behind a login page, but often isn’t. Consider the service pictured below, which for $44 will let anyone look up the credit score of any American who hasn’t already frozen their credit files with the big three. Worse yet, you don’t even need to have accurate information on a target — such as their Social Security number or current address.

KrebsOnSecurity was made aware of this particular portal by Alex Holden, CEO of Milwaukee, Wisc.-based cybersecurity firm Hold Security LLC [full disclosure: This author is listed as an adviser to Hold Security, however this is and always has been a volunteer role for which I have not been compensated].

Holden’s wife Lisa is a mortgage broker, and as such she has access to a more full-featured version of the above-pictured consumer data lookup service (among others) for the purposes of helping clients determine a range of mortgage rates available. Mrs. Holden said the version of this service that she has access to will return accurate, current and complete credit file information on consumers even if one enters a made-up SSN and old address on an individual who hasn’t yet frozen their credit files with the big three.

“I’ve noticed in the past when I do a hard pull on someone’s credit report and the buyer gave me the wrong SSN or transposed some digits, not only will these services give me their credit report and full account history, it also tells you what their correct SSN is,” Mrs. Holden said.

With Mr. Holden’s permission, I gave the site pictured above an old street address for him plus a made-up SSN, and provided my credit card number to pay for the report. The document generated by that request said TransUnion and Experian were unable to look up his credit score with the information provided. However, Equifax not only provided his current credit score, it helpfully corrected the false data I entered for Holden, providing the last four digits of his real SSN and current address.

“We assume our credit report is keyed off of our SSN or something unique about ourselves,” Mrs. Holden said. “But it’s really keyed off your White Pages information, meaning anyone can get your credit report if they are in the know.”

I was pleased to find that I was unable to pull my own credit score through this exposed online service, although the site still charged me $44. The report produced simply said the consumer in question had requested that access to this information be restricted. But the real reason was simply that I’ve had my credit file frozen for years now.

Many media outlets are publishing stories this week about the one-year anniversary of the breach at Equifax that exposed the personal and financial data on more than 147 million people. But it’s important for everyone to remember that as bad as the Equifax breach was (and it was a total dumpster fire all around), most of the consumer data exposed in the breach has been for sale in the cybercrime underground for many years on a majority of Americans — including access to consumer credit reports. If anything, the Equifax breach may have simply helped ID thieves refresh some of those criminal data stores.

It costs $35 worth of bitcoin through this cybercrime service to pull someone’s credit file from the three major credit bureaus. There are many services just like this one, which almost certainly abuse hacked accounts from various industries that have “legitimate” access to consumer credit reports.

Continue reading →

Leader of DDoS-for-Hire Gang Pleads Guilty to Bomb Threats

September 6, 2018
47 Comments

A 19-year-old man from the United Kingdom who headed a cybercriminal group whose motto was “Feds Can’t Touch Us” pleaded guilty this week to making bomb threats against thousands of schools.

On Aug. 31, officers with the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested Hertfordshire resident George Duke-Cohan, who admitted making bomb threats to thousands of schools and a United Airlines flight traveling from the U.K. to San Francisco last month.

One of many tweets from the attention-starved Apophis Squad, which launched multiple DDoS attacks against KrebsOnsecurity and Protonmail over the past few months.

Duke-Cohan — a.k.a. “7R1D3N7,” “DoubleParallax” and “Optcz1” — was among the most vocal members of a group of Internet hooligans that goes by the name “Apophis Squad,” which for the better part of 2018 has been launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against multiple Web sites, including KrebsOnSecurity and Protonmail.com.

Incredibly, all self-described members of Duke-Cohan’s clique were active users of Protonmail, even as they repeatedly attacked its servers and taunted the company on social media.

“What we found, combined with intelligence provided by renowned cyber security journalist Brian Krebs, allowed us to conclusively identify Duke-Cohan as a member of Apophis Squad in the first week of August, and we promptly informed law enforcement,” Protonmail wrote in a blog post published today. “British police did not move to immediately arrest Duke-Cohan however, and we believe there were good reasons for that. Unfortunately, this meant that through much of August, ProtonMail remained under attack, but due to the efforts of Radware, ProtonMail users saw no impact.” Continue reading →