Author Archives: Daniel Quinn Flint

A week ago, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that someone was attempting to disrupt the Trickbot botnet, a malware crime machine that has infected millions of computers and is often used to spread ransomware. A new report Friday says the coordinated attack was part of an operation carried out by the U.S. military’s Cyber Command. Image:Continue reading “Report: U.S. Cyber Command Behind Trickbot Tricks”

There’s an old adage in information security: “Every company gets penetration tested, whether or not they pay someone for the pleasure.” Many organizations that do hire professionals to test their network security posture unfortunately tend to focus on fixing vulnerabilities hackers could use to break in. But judging from the proliferation of help-wanted ads forContinue reading “Amid an Embarrassment of Riches, Ransom Gangs Increasingly Outsource Their Work”

September featured two stories on a phony tech investor named John Bernard, a pseudonym used by a convicted thief named John Clifton Davies who’s fleeced dozens of technology companies out of an estimated $30 million with the promise of lucrative investments. Those stories prompted a flood of tips from Davies’ victims that paint a muchContinue reading “Promising Infusions of Cash, Fake Investor John Bernard Walked Away With $30M”

Over the past 10 days, someone has been launching a series of coordinated attacks designed to disrupt Trickbot, an enormous collection of more than two million malware-infected Windows PCs that are constantly being harvested for financial data and are often used as the entry point for deploying ransomware within compromised organizations. A text snippet fromContinue reading “Attacks Aimed at Disrupting the Trickbot Botnet”

Companies victimized by ransomware and firms that facilitate negotiations with ransomware extortionists could face steep fines from the U.S. federal government if the crooks who profit from the attack are already under economic sanctions, the Treasury Department warned today. Image: Shutterstock In its advisory (PDF), the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said “companiesContinue reading “Ransomware Victims That Pay Up Could Incur Steep Fines from Uncle Sam”

Emergency 911 systems were down for more than an hour on Monday in towns and cities across 14 U.S. states. The outages led many news outlets to speculate the problem was related to Microsoft‘s Azure web services platform, which also was struggling with a widespread outage at the time. However, multiple sources tell KrebsOnSecurity theContinue reading “Who’s Behind Monday’s 14-State 911 Outage?”

John Bernard, the subject of a story here last week about a self-proclaimed millionaire investor who has bilked countless tech startups, appears to be a pseudonym for John Clifton Davies, a U.K. man who absconded from justice before being convicted on multiple counts of fraud in 2015. Prior to his conviction, Davies served 16 monthsContinue reading “Who is Tech Investor John Bernard?”

Microsoft warned on Wednesday that malicious hackers are exploiting a particularly dangerous flaw in Windows Server systems that could be used to give attackers the keys to the kingdom inside a vulnerable corporate network. Microsoft’s warning comes just days after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an emergency directive instructing all federal agencies toContinue reading “Microsoft: Attackers Exploiting ‘ZeroLogon’ Windows Flaw”

A suspect initially investigated by my former Team in Washington, D.C. approximately 3 years ago was just recently indicted on 126 counts of felony charges related to fraud at the federal level. Although the original Team responsible for initially finding and investigating this bad actor is no longer in service, this indictment serves as justContinue reading “Bad Actor Caught”

Tyler Technologies, a Texas-based company that bills itself as the largest provider of software and technology services to the United States public sector, is battling a network intrusion that has disrupted its operations. The company declined to discuss the exact cause of the disruption, but their response so far is straight out of the playbookContinue reading “Govt. Services Firm Tyler Technologies Hit in Apparent Ransomware Attack”