Russian Cybersecurity Executive Arrested for Alleged Role in 2012 Megahacks

Nikita 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 ...

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$10M Is Yours If You Can Get This Guy to Leave Russia

The U.S. government this week put a $10 million bounty on the head of a Russian man who for the past 18 years operated Try2Check, one of the cybercrime underground’s most trusted services for checking the validity of stolen credit card data. U.S. authorities say 43-year-old Denis Kulkov‘s card-check...

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How Cyber Sleuths Cracked an ATM Shimmer Gang

In 2015, police departments worldwide started finding ATMs compromised with advanced new “shimming” devices made to steal data from chip card transactions. Authorities in the United States and abroad had seized many of these shimmers, but for years couldn’t decrypt the data on the devices. This is a...

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Confessions of an ID Theft Kingpin, Part II

Yesterday’s piece told the tale of Hieu Minh Ngo, a hacker the U.S. Secret Service described as someone who caused more material financial harm to more Americans than any other convicted cybercriminal. Ngo was recently deported back to his home country after serving more than seven years in pr...

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Confessions of an ID Theft Kingpin, Part I

At the height of his cybercriminal career, the hacker known as “Hieupc” was earning $125,000 a month running a bustling identity theft service that siphoned consumer dossiers from some of the world’s top data brokers. That is, until his greed and ambition played straight into an el...

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Encoding Stolen Credit Card Data on Barcodes

Crooks are constantly dreaming up new ways to use and conceal stolen credit card data. According to the U.S. Secret Service, the latest scheme involves stolen card information embedded in barcodes affixed to phony money network rewards cards. The scammers then pay for merchandise by instructing a ca...

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Secret Service Investigates Breach at U.S. Govt IT Contractor

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating a breach at a Virginia-based government technology contractor that saw access to several of its systems put up for sale in the cybercrime underground, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The contractor claims the access being auctioned off was to old test systems th...

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Meet Bluetana, the Scourge of Pump Skimmers

“Bluetana,” a new mobile app that looks for Bluetooth-based payment card skimmers hidden inside gas pumps, is helping police and state employees more rapidly and accurately locate compromised fuel stations across the nation, a study released this week suggests. Data collected in the cour...

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New Breed of Fuel Pump Skimmer Uses SMS and Bluetooth

Fraud investigators say they’ve uncovered a sophisticated new breed of credit card skimmers being installed at gas pumps that is capable of relaying stolen card data via mobile text message, thereby enabling fraudsters to collect it from anywhere in the world. One interesting component of this...

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Secret Service: Theft Rings Turn to Fuze Cards

Street thieves who specialize in cashing out stolen credit and debit cards increasingly are hedging their chances of getting caught carrying multiple counterfeit cards by relying on Fuze Cards, a smartcard technology that allows users to store dozens of cards on a single device, the U.S. Secret Serv...

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USPS Site Exposed Data on 60 Million Users

U.S. Postal Service just fixed a security weakness that allowed anyone who has an account at usps.com to view account details for some 60 million other users, and in some cases to modify account details on their behalf. Image: USPS.com KrebsOnSecurity was contacted last week by a researcher who...

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U.S. Secret Service Warns ID Thieves are Abusing USPS’s Mail Scanning Service

A year ago, KrebsOnSecurity warned that “Informed Delivery,” a new offering from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that lets residents view scanned images of all incoming mail, was likely to be abused by identity thieves and other fraudsters unless the USPS beefed up security arou...

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Secret Service Warns of Surge in ATM ‘Wiretapping’ Attacks

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 A...

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Secret Service Warns of Chip Card Scheme

The U.S. Secret Service is warning financial institutions about a new scam involving the temporary theft of chip-based debit cards issued to large corporations. In this scheme, the fraudsters intercept new debit cards in the mail and replace the chips on the cards with chips from old cards. When the...

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First ‘Jackpotting’ Attacks Hit U.S. ATMs

ATM “jackpotting” — a sophisticated crime in which thieves install malicious software and/or hardware at ATMs that forces the machines to spit out huge volumes of cash on demand — has long been a threat for banks in Europe and Asia, yet these attacks somehow have eluded U.S. ...

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First ‘Jackpotting’ Attacks Hit U.S. ATMs

ATM “jackpotting” — a sophisticated crime in which thieves install malicious software and/or hardware at ATMs that forces the machines to spit out huge volumes of cash on demand — has long been a threat for banks in Europe and Asia, yet these attacks somehow have eluded U.S. ...

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Trump’s Dumps: ‘Making Dumps Great Again’

It’s not uncommon for crooks who peddle stolen credit cards to seize on iconic American figures of wealth and power in the digital advertisements for their shops that run incessantly on various cybercrime forums. Exhibit A: McDumpals, a hugely popular carding site that borrows the Ronald ...

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Trump’s Dumps: ‘Making Dumps Great Again’

It’s not uncommon for crooks who peddle stolen credit cards to seize on iconic American figures of wealth and power in the digital advertisements for their shops that run incessantly on various cybercrime forums. Exhibit A: McDumpals, a hugely popular carding site that borrows the Ronald ...

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Inside Arizona’s Pump Skimmer Scourge

Crooks who deploy skimming devices made to steal payment card details from fuel station pumps don’t just target filling stations at random: They tend to focus on those that neglect to deploy various tools designed to minimize such scams, including security cameras, non-standard pump locks...

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Inside Arizona’s Pump Skimmer Scourge

Crooks who deploy skimming devices made to steal payment card details from fuel station pumps don’t just target filling stations at random: They tend to focus on those that neglect to deploy various tools designed to minimize such scams, including security cameras, non-standard pump locks...

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