Custom-built homes are a trend now because they are unique and stand out. Also, because you can integrate the local landscape to suit the style. Plus, building and designing your dream home yourself means you will be satisfied with all its features, not settling for less. The steps to building your ...
Leather Furniture: What You Should Know and How to Clean
Although a tad expensive, leather furniture has held up a reputation for elegance, durability, and comfort. They are also easier to clean and unlike fabric furniture, do not hold in odor and as much moisture. However, due to their durability, it is important that you care for them and so, suck out a...
What Counts as “Good Faith Security Research?”
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently revised its policy on charging violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a 1986 law that remains the primary statute by which federal prosecutors pursue cybercrime cases. The new guidelines state that prosecutors should avoid charging securi...
4 Statement-Making Front Door Trends
Your front door is one of the first things that people see when they arrive, or even pass by, your home. It sets the tone for your property, allows you to tell people about your personal style, and also provides security for your property. That’s why most people choose to invest in high-quality door...
11 Amazing Uses of Wire Baler At Home
Baling wire is a long thin wire used for binding, tying and fastening. Commonly used in farming and construction, baling wire is a strong durable material that can be used in many ways around the home. 1. As a clothesline. Baling wire is a common material used to make clotheslines. It is light, stro...
Costa Rica May Be Pawn in Conti Ransomware Group’s Bid to Rebrand, Evade Sanctions
Costa Rica’s national health service was hacked sometime earlier this morning by a Russian ransomware group known as Hive. The intrusion comes just weeks after Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves declared a state of emergency in response to a data ransom attack from a different Russian ransomware g...
Senators Urge FTC to Probe ID.me Over Selfie Data
Some of more tech-savvy Democrats in the U.S. Senate are asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate identity-proofing company ID.me for “deceptive statements” the company and its founder allegedly made over how they handle facial recognition data collected on behalf of the Internal Rev...
When Your Smart ID Card Reader Comes With Malware
Millions of U.S. government employees and contractors have been issued a secure smart ID card that enables physical access to buildings and controlled spaces, and provides access to government computer networks and systems at the cardholder’s appropriate security level. But many government employees...
DEA Investigating Breach of Law Enforcement Data Portal
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says it is investigating reports that hackers gained unauthorized access to an agency portal that taps into 16 different federal law enforcement databases. KrebsOnSecurity has learned the alleged compromise is tied to a cybercrime and online harassment ...
Microsoft Patch Tuesday, May 2022 Edition
Microsoft today released updates to fix at least 74 separate security problems in its Windows operating systems and related software. This month’s patch batch includes fixes for seven “critical” flaws, as well as a zero-day vulnerability that affects all supported versions of Windows. By all account...
Your Phone May Soon Replace Many of Your Passwords
Apple, Google and Microsoft announced this week they will soon support an approach to authentication that avoids passwords altogether, and instead requires users to merely unlock their smartphones to sign in to websites or online services. Experts say the changes should help defeat many types of phi...
Russia to Rent Tech-Savvy Prisoners to Corporate IT?
Image: Proxima Studios, via Shutterstock. Faced with a brain drain of smart people fleeing the country following its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation is floating a new strategy to address a worsening shortage of qualified information technology experts: Forcing tech-savvy people within th...
You Can Now Ask Google to Remove Your Phone Number, Email or Address from Search Results
Google said this week it is expanding the types of data people can ask to have removed from search results, to include personal contact information like your phone number, email address or physical address. The move comes just months after Google rolled out a new policy enabling people under the age...
Fighting Fake EDRs With ‘Credit Ratings’ for Police
When KrebsOnSecurity recently explored how cybercriminals were using hacked email accounts at police departments worldwide to obtain warrantless Emergency Data Requests (EDRs) from social media firms and technology providers, many security experts called it a fundamentally unfixable problem. But don...
Leaked Chats Show LAPSUS$ Stole T-Mobile Source Code
KrebsOnSecurity recently reviewed a copy of the private chat messages between members of the LAPSUS$ cybercrime group in the week leading up to the arrest of its most active members last month. The logs show LAPSUS$ breached T-Mobile multiple times in March, stealing source code for a range of compa...
Conti’s Ransomware Toll on the Healthcare Industry
Conti — one of the most ruthless and successful Russian ransomware groups — publicly declared during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that it would refrain from targeting healthcare providers. But new information confirms this pledge was always a lie, and that Conti has launched more than 200 att...
Microsoft Patch Tuesday, April 2022 Edition
Microsoft on Tuesday released updates to fix roughly 120 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other software. Two of the flaws have been publicly detailed prior to this week, and one is already seeing active exploitation, according to a report from the U.S. National Security...
RaidForums Get Raided, Alleged Admin Arrested
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said today it seized the website and user database for RaidForums, an extremely popular English-language cybercrime forum that sold access to more than 10 billion consumer records stolen in some of the world’s largest data breaches since 2015. The DOJ also charge...
Double-Your-Crypto Scams Share Crypto Scam Host
Online scams that try to separate the unwary from their cryptocurrency are a dime a dozen, but a great many seemingly disparate crypto scam websites tend to rely on the same dodgy infrastructure providers to remain online in the face of massive fraud and abuse complaints from their erstwhile custome...
Actions Target Russian Govt. Botnet, Hydra Dark Market
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says it has disrupted a giant botnet built and operated by a Russian government intelligence unit known for launching destructive cyberattacks against energy infrastructure in the United States and Ukraine. Separately, law enforcement agencies in the U....
The Original APT: Advanced Persistent Teenagers
Many organizations are already struggling to combat cybersecurity threats from ransomware purveyors and state-sponsored hacking groups, both of which tend to take days or weeks to pivot from an opportunistic malware infection to a full blown data breach. But few organizations have a playbook for res...
Fake Emergency Search Warrants Draw Scrutiny from Capitol Hill
On Tuesday, KrebsOnSecurity warned that hackers increasingly are using compromised government and police department email accounts to obtain sensitive customer data from mobile providers, ISPs and social media companies. Today, one of the U.S. Senate’s most tech-savvy lawmakers said he was troubled ...
Hackers Gaining Power of Subpoena Via Fake “Emergency Data Requests”
There is a terrifying and highly effective “method” that criminal hackers are now using to harvest sensitive customer data from Internet service providers, phone companies and social media firms. It involves compromising email accounts and websites tied to police departments and government agencies,...
Estonian Tied to 13 Ransomware Attacks Gets 66 Months in Prison
An Estonian man was sentenced today to more than five years in a U.S. prison for his role in at least 13 ransomware attacks that caused losses of approximately $53 million. Prosecutors say the accused also enjoyed a lengthy career of “cashing out” access to hacked bank accounts worldwide. Maksim Ber...
A Closer Look at the LAPSUS$ Data Extortion Group
Microsoft and identity management platform Okta both this week disclosed breaches involving LAPSUS$, a relatively new cybercrime group that specializes in stealing data from big companies and threatening to publish it unless a ransom demand is paid. Here’s a closer look at LAPSUS$, and some of the l...
‘Spam Nation’ Villain Vrublevsky Charged With Fraud
Pavel Vrublevsky, founder of the Russian payment technology firm ChronoPay and the antagonist in my 2014 book “Spam Nation,” was arrested in Moscow this month and charged with fraud. Russian authorities allege Vrublevsky operated several fraudulent SMS-based payment schemes, and facilitated money la...
Pro-Ukraine ‘Protestware’ Pushes Antiwar Ads, Geo-Targeted Malware
Researchers are tracking a number of open-source “protestware” projects on GitHub that have recently altered their code to display “Stand with Ukraine” messages for users, or basic facts about the carnage in Ukraine. The group also is tracking several code packages that were recently modified to era...
Lawmakers Probe Early Release of Top RU Cybercrook
Aleksei Burkov, seated second from right, attends a hearing in Jerusalem in 2015. Image: Andrei Shirokov / Tass via Getty Images. Aleksei Burkov, a cybercriminal who long operated two of Russia’s most exclusive underground hacking forums, was arrested in 2015 by Israeli authorities. The Russian gove...
Report: Recent 10x Increase in Cyberattacks on Ukraine
As their cities suffered more intense bombardment by Russian military forces this week, Ukrainian Internet users came under renewed cyberattacks, with one Internet company providing service there saying they blocked ten times the normal number of phishing and malware attacks targeting Ukrainians. Jo...
Microsoft Patch Tuesday, March 2022 Edition
Microsoft on Tuesday released software updates to plug at least 70 security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software. For the second month running, there are no scary zero-day threats looming for Windows users (that we know of), and relatively few “critical” fixes. And yet we know...