Author Archives: Daniel Quinn Flint

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) disclosed today that it infiltrated the world’s second most prolific ransomware gang, a Russia-based criminal group known as ALPHV and BlackCat. The FBI said it seized the gang’s darknet website, and released a decryption tool that hundreds of victim companies can use to recover systems. Meanwhile, BlackCat respondedContinue reading “BlackCat Ransomware Raises Ante After FBI Disruption”

On Dec. 18, 2013, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that U.S. retail giant Target was battling a wide-ranging computer intrusion that compromised more than 40 million customer payment cards over the previous month. The malware used in the Target breach included the text string “Rescator,” which also was the handle chosen by the cybercriminal who wasContinue reading “Ten Years Later, New Clues in the Target Breach”

The final Patch Tuesday of 2023 is upon us, with Microsoft Corp. today releasing fixes for a relatively small number of security holes in its Windows operating systems and other software. Even more unusual, there are no known “zero-day” threats targeting any of the vulnerabilities in December’s patch batch. Still, four of the updates pushedContinue reading “Microsoft Patch Tuesday, December 2023 Edition”

More than five years after domain name registrars started redacting personal data from all public domain registration records, the non-profit organization overseeing the domain industry has introduced a centralized online service designed to make it easier for researchers, law enforcement and others to request the information directly from registrars. In May 2018, the Internet CorporationContinue reading “ICANN Launches Service to Help With WHOIS Lookups”

When KrebsOnSecurity broke the news on Oct. 20, 2023 that identity and authentication giant Okta had suffered a breach in its customer support department, Okta said the intrusion allowed hackers to steal sensitive data from fewer than one percent of its 18,000+ customers. But today, Okta revised that impact statement, saying the attackers also stoleContinue reading “Okta: Breach Affected All Customer Support Users”

One of the cybercrime underground’s more active sellers of Social Security numbers, background and credit reports has been pulling data from hacked accounts at the U.S. consumer data broker USinfoSearch, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Since at least February 2023, a service advertised on Telegram called USiSLookups has operated an automated bot that allows anyone to lookContinue reading “ID Theft Service Resold Access to USInfoSearch Data”

Prosecutors in Finland this week commenced their criminal trial against Julius Kivimäki, a 26-year-old Finnish man charged with extorting a once popular and now-bankrupt online psychotherapy practice and thousands of its patients. In a 2,200-page report, Finnish authorities laid out how they connected the extortion spree to Kivimäki, a notorious hacker who was convicted inContinue reading “Alleged Extortioner of Psychotherapy Patients Faces Trial”

Microsoft today released updates to fix more than five dozen security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software, including three “zero day” vulnerabilities that Microsoft warns are already being exploited in active attacks. The zero-day threats targeting Microsoft this month include CVE-2023-36025, a weakness that allows malicious content to bypass the Windows SmartScreenContinue reading “Microsoft Patch Tuesday, November 2023 Edition”

In the summer of 2022, KrebsOnSecurity documented the plight of several readers who had their accounts at big-three consumer credit reporting bureau Experian hijacked after identity thieves simply re-registered the accounts using a different email address. Sixteen months later, Experian clearly has not addressed this gaping lack of security. I know that because my accountContinue reading “It’s Still Easy for Anyone to Become You at Experian”

Last week, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that one of the largest cybercrime services for laundering stolen merchandise was hacked recently, exposing its internal operations, finances and organizational structure. In today’s Part II, we’ll examine clues about the real-life identity of “Fearless,” the nickname chosen by the proprietor of the SWAT USA Drops service. Based inContinue reading “Who’s Behind the SWAT USA Reshipping Service?”