July 13, 2023
This post was originally published on this site[This is Part II of a story published here last week on reporting that went into a new Hulu documentary series on the 2015 Ashley Madison hack.] It was around 9 p.m. on Sunday, July 19, when I received a message through the contact form on KrebsOnSecurity.com that the marital infidelity website AshleyMadison.com had been hacked. The message contained links to confidential Ashley Madison documents, and included a manifesto that said a hacker group calling itself the Impact Team was prepared to leak data on all 37 million users unless Ashley Madison and […]
July 7, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteWhen the marital infidelity website AshleyMadison.com learned in July 2015 that hackers were threatening to publish data stolen from 37 million users, the company’s then-CEO Noel Biderman was quick to point the finger at an unnamed former contractor. But as a new documentary series on Hulu reveals [SPOILER ALERT!], there was just one problem with that theory: Their top suspect had killed himself more than a year before the hackers began publishing stolen user data. The new documentary, The Ashley Madison Affair, begins airing today on Hulu in the United States and on […]
June 29, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteNikita Kislitsin, formerly the head of network security for one of Russia’s top cybersecurity firms, was arrested last week in Kazakhstan in response to 10-year-old hacking charges from the U.S. Department of Justice. Experts say Kislitsin’s prosecution could soon put the Kazakhstan government in a sticky diplomatic position, as the Kremlin is already signaling that it intends to block his extradition to the United States. Nikita Kislitsin, at a security conference in Russia. Kislitsin is accused of hacking into the now-defunct social networking site Formspring in 2012, and conspiring with another Russian man […]
June 27, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteJoseph James “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor, a 24-year-old from the United Kingdom who earned his 15 minutes of fame by participating in the July 2020 hack of Twitter, has been sentenced to five years in a U.S. prison. That may seem like harsh punishment for a brief and very public cyber joy ride. But O’Connor also pleaded guilty in a separate investigation involving a years-long spree of cyberstalking and cryptocurrency theft enabled by “SIM swapping,” a crime wherein fraudsters trick a mobile provider into diverting a customer’s phone calls and text messages to a device […]
June 22, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteThe United Parcel Service (UPS) says fraudsters have been harvesting phone numbers and other information from its online shipment tracking tool in Canada to send highly targeted SMS phishing (a.k.a. “smishing”) messages that spoofed UPS and other top brands. The missives addressed recipients by name, included details about recent orders, and warned that those orders wouldn’t be shipped unless the customer paid an added delivery fee. In a snail mail letter sent this month to Canadian customers, UPS Canada Ltd. said it is aware that some package recipients have received fraudulent text messages […]
June 13, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteMicrosoft Corp. today released software updates to fix dozens of security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other software. This month’s relatively light patch load has another added bonus for system administrators everywhere: It appears to be the first Patch Tuesday since March 2022 that isn’t marred by the active exploitation of a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft’s products. June’s Patch Tuesday features updates to plug at least 70 security holes, and while none of these are reported by Microsoft as exploited in-the-wild yet, Redmond has flagged several in particular as “more likely […]
June 6, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteOne of the most expensive aspects of any cybercriminal operation is the time and effort it takes to constantly create large numbers of new throwaway email accounts. Now a new service offers to help dramatically cut costs associated with large-scale spam and account creation campaigns, by paying people to sell their email account credentials and letting customers temporarily rent access to a vast pool of established accounts at major providers. The service in question — kopeechka[.]store — is perhaps best described as a kind of unidirectional email confirmation-as-a-service that promises to “save your […]
May 16, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteA Russian man identified by KrebsOnSecurity in January 2022 as a prolific and vocal member of several top ransomware groups was the subject of two indictments unsealed by the Justice Department today. U.S. prosecutors say Mikhail Pavolovich Matveev, a.k.a. “Wazawaka” and “Boriselcin” worked with three different ransomware gangs that extorted hundreds of millions of dollars from companies, schools, hospitals and government agencies. An FBI wanted poster for Matveev. Indictments returned in New Jersey and the District of Columbia allege that Matveev was involved in a conspiracy to distribute ransomware from three different strains […]
May 16, 2023
This post was originally published on this site Countless smartphones seized in arrests and searches by police forces across the United States are being auctioned online without first having the data on them erased, a practice that can lead to crime victims being re-victimized, a new study found. In response, the largest online marketplace for items seized in U.S. law enforcement investigations says it now ensures that all phones sold through its platform will be data-wiped prior to auction. Researchers at the University of Maryland last year purchased 228 smartphones sold “as-is” from PropertyRoom.com, which bills itself as the largest […]
May 9, 2023
This post was originally published on this site The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this week seized 13 domain names connected to “booter” services that let paying customers launch crippling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Ten of the domains are reincarnations of DDoS-for-hire services the FBI seized in December 2022, when it charged six U.S. men with computer crimes for allegedly operating booters. Booter services are advertised through a variety of methods, including Dark Web forums, chat platforms and even youtube.com. They accept payment via PayPal, Google Wallet, and/or cryptocurrencies, and subscriptions can range in price from just a few […]
April 27, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteA shocking number of organizations — including banks and healthcare providers — are leaking private and sensitive information from their public Salesforce Community websites, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The data exposures all stem from a misconfiguration in Salesforce Community that allows an unauthenticated user to access records that should only be available after logging in. A researcher found DC Health had five Salesforce Community sites exposing data. Salesforce Community is a widely-used cloud-based software product that makes it easy for organizations to quickly create websites. Customers can access a Salesforce Community website in two […]
April 18, 2023
This post was originally published on this siteFor the past seven years, a malware-based proxy service known as “Faceless” has sold anonymity to countless cybercriminals. For less than a dollar per day, Faceless customers can route their malicious traffic through tens of thousands of compromised systems advertised on the service. In this post we’ll examine clues left behind over the past decade by the proprietor of Faceless, including some that may help put a face to the name. The proxy lookup page inside the malware-based anonymity service Faceless. Image: spur.us. Riley Kilmer is co-founder of Spur.us, a company that tracks […]