BrianKrebs

Independent investigative journalist. Covers cybercrime, security, privacy. Author of 'Spam Nation,' a NYT bestseller. Former Washington Post reporter, '95-'09. Twitter: @briankrebs Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkrebs/

Public Key

npub1rfdvtvmesnz7x7s3hjg5q2dgrup9xfh209gvj36angljrfy5edtq25t9xk

NIP-05 Address

briankrebs_at_infosec.exchange@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsp5kk9kducf30r0ggmey2q9x5p7qjnym48j5xfgawe50ep5j2vk4spz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qt799q2

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

Author Public Key

npub1rfdvtvmesnz7x7s3hjg5q2dgrup9xfh209gvj36angljrfy5edtq25t9xk

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Last Notes

2024-08-19 23:17:08

Haha. Fsck that guy.
https://apnews.com/article/george-santos-plea-court-new-york-90741d068fd94090419fc0fd79be30cc
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/112/991/230/409/146/587/original/35f9fc6bb485fcfb.png

2024-08-05 16:42:21

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@npub1tpj…fmcs lazers into space is cool. thanks for sharing.

2024-08-03 19:10:49

Gift link in case anyone wants to read the full story: https://wapo.st/4d8qF7c
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Saturday that he will no longer appear at a previously scheduled debate on Sept. 10 and will only debate Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, if she agrees to his terms: a debate on Sept. 4, hosted by Fox News, with a “full arena audience.”
#wussout #coward

2024-08-02 01:23:15

I had minor panic attack today that was semi-disabling. It happened after a moment of extreme emotional stress, and all of a sudden I couldn't breath or stand I was so dizzy. Next thing I knew I was on the floor. It all came and passed in a matter of 60 seconds, when I finally got control over my breathing.
I feel a lot better now, but that was super scary. I can't recall ever having experienced a panic attack personally, but I now have a much better appreciation for people who struggle with this on an ongoing basis. Probably time for an unscheduled vacay.

2024-07-30 18:32:05

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Against my better judgment, I posted something similar on LinkedIn, and OMG the "stay in your lane" responses dominate. It's almost as if half the security professionals in this country see absolutely zero connection between national security and cybersecurity.

2024-07-30 17:39:51

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Meant to add that the story is now at the top of the NYT website, where it belongs for probably the next few months.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/112/876/664/397/638/934/original/a8dae46ced81e8bd.png

2024-07-30 17:32:58

It's about f'in time the big publications pressed Mr. Trump on his statements this past week that supporters just needed to vote for him one more time, and then "you don't have to vote again." Trump's response -- which is that if he's elected "the country will be fixed" and their votes won't be needed -- seems pretty unambiguous. It is absolutely unreal that this is the GOP candidate for president, and that this blatantly antidemocratic statement alone does not somehow disqualify him from running.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/30/us/harris-trump-election

2024-07-13 15:46:55

While this may come as a shock to some of my followers, I do have quite a few hobbies and personal causes that have nothing to do with computer security or cybercrime. So if my occasional outbursts about cooking, nature, music, politics or whatever has you feeling like responding that I should stay in my lane, just know that few things annoy me more and I will block you immediately.

2024-07-13 13:04:06

So apparently the European Honeybee has recently been named Virginia's official state pollinator. This steams me so bad. Honeybees are NOT native to Virginia, and the fact that so many people import them to grow colonies and have their own honey actually crowds out native bees that mostly feed on native plants. I'm still not sure how this happened, as the European Honeybee is widely considered an invasive species.

2024-05-13 15:46:26

I'm not sure what this says about me, but I can't remember the last time I checked the number of hits on a story (on my own site). Had this realization today when someone offered to show me what they saw on their site after I posted something recently. Is it good or bad that I'm so incurious?

2024-05-13 13:33:49

TIL you can quickly find your own posts by including "from:me" in the search box and then a key word or phrase you're searching for. Yes, it took me this long to figure that out.

2024-04-17 15:48:57

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Muted several accounts telling me to delete my post, calling it ageist or unfair to older net-wise people. I get this is a sensitive issue. But pretending it doesn't exist makes no sense. Yes, kids do stupid shit on the Internet, too, but it usually doesn't cost you your inheritance or the kid's college fund.

2024-04-17 13:31:51

People worry about what their kids are doing online. They should probably be more worried about what their elderly parents are doing online.
Seriously. When was the last time you heard someone suggested installing (legal) spyware (with consent) on your parents' computer, or adding your number to receive SMS when they make a purchase or send money?
Maybe people already do this. But I never hear anyone talk about it. Let's talk about it.

2024-04-05 14:48:01

Is it possible N. Virginia could feel the 4.7M earthquake this morning whose epicenter was in NJ? Because I definitely thought I did. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000ma74/executive
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/112/219/156/052/592/572/original/860d2c5a18f92e77.png

2024-03-27 11:51:33

FTG. Someone sent me this and now I'm cranky. You're welcome.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/112/167/497/628/981/430/original/3800692d888d434a.png

2024-03-16 16:02:46

Being envious of others has never really been in my nature. But I'm feeling pretty darn left out right now.
https://therecord.media/russia-new-sanctions-on-cyber-journalists-americans
Congratulations to all my journalist colleagues newly enrolled in Putiny's official enemies list.

2024-03-14 20:47:48

I have a feeling that the story I'm about to publish about a privacy company whose CEO apparently has founded dozens of people-search businesses is not going to end well for the privacy company or CEO.

2024-03-12 22:51:15

SMH
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/112/085/157/446/304/486/original/88b11a3eb6f4504a.png

2024-03-12 14:32:50

I resemble this post
https://crankysec.com/blog/cranks/
Reminds me of the messages I sometimes get after breaking a story about a big breach, and the reader asks "WHY ISN'T ANYONE TALKING ABOUT THE ROOT CAUSE???," as if this is somehow gettable and knowable on Day 1, and somehow didn't occur to anyone.

2024-03-11 19:47:11

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@npub1lrv…tth9 Thanks, Dan. So, you would know: Do they teach you not to do that in journalism school? :)

2024-03-10 15:43:25

Information wants to be freemium.

2024-02-20 19:52:04

Sure. Let Adobe AI scan all of your documents. What could go wrong?
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/111/965/549/009/507/066/original/74ba0286e8c868ce.png

2024-02-08 16:37:14

Google is too big to fail, and yet they seem to be failing at basic things they used to do well (like search) while removing useful features (like cache) and adding a bunch of crap nobody needs or wants.
Want to know if a given domain name shows up anywhere in search? Well screw you, we're not going to tell you that anymore, but here's 1,400 completely useless and irrelevant results that could possibly have some info (but don't). When the search engine could have done what it's done for years, and admit that it doesn't know WTF you're talking about and say "no results found." Now it just makes shit up if it doesn't know the answer.
Hey cool! My search result shows the term I was looking for is present on 7 website. Shoot! None of them are online anymore. How about showing us your cached version of the site, you know the one that was used to create this search result? Oh wait, no, you can't see that anymore. Why? Here's Danny Sullivan's dismissive and mystifying explanation: "“It was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading,” Sullivan wrote on X. “These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it.”
Want software? Great, Google will serve a malicious ad on top that looks a lot like an organic search result but which is paid for by scammers and installs malware.

2024-01-27 14:17:46

If you've ever wondered why some Wi-Fi is free (like in hotels), it's because typically data about your browsing is sold to countless ad companies that will happily buy it.
Had to use the hotel WiFi recently on a trip, and after clicking "agree" to their terms of service, the Little Snitch firewall on my Mac went bonkers. I must have denied 20-30 outbound requests to advertising networks. It still worked, though, so I'm guessing I didn't manage to block all of it.

2024-01-26 15:27:14

Google continues to struggle with cybercriminals running malicious ads on its search platform to trick people into downloading booby-trapped copies of popular free software applications. The malicious ads, which appear above organic search results and often precede links to legitimate sources of the same software, can make searching for software on Google a dicey affair.
h/t @npub1rf9…5fxu for the image
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/01/using-google-search-to-find-software-can-be-risky/
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/111/822/944/786/809/009/original/3175aaa93df8949a.png

2024-01-20 00:04:50

Microsoft says a Russian state-sponsored hacking group known as Midnight Blizzard/Nobelium used a password spray attack to compromise a legacy non-production test tenant account and gain a foothold, and then used the account’s permissions to access a very small percentage of
"Microsoft corporate email accounts, including members of our senior leadership team and employees in our cybersecurity, legal, and other functions, and exfiltrated some emails and attached documents. The investigation indicates they were initially targeting email accounts for information related to Midnight Blizzard itself."
https://msrc.microsoft.com/blog/2024/01/microsoft-actions-following-attack-by-nation-state-actor-midnight-blizzard/
Password spraying is low-tech and pervasive. The good news is, you can password spray your own users just like the bad guys can, and then tighten things up.

2023-12-14 18:22:24

LinkedIn continues to push AI on its users -- this time for its Premium (read:paying) customers. Fsck off already with this crap, Microsoft.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/111/580/158/051/264/350/original/d7198e1cc39a8d1f.png

2023-11-08 20:05:05

One of the more limiting things about Signal is you have to give out your mobile number to everyone. Even if it is a burner, I still don't want to advertise to the world that it's mine.
Was happy to read today that Signal is now beta testing a new username feature.
https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-username-testing-staging-environment/56866

2023-10-25 14:54:46

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@npub16kz…fslh My problem with ad blockers is they are all or nothing. None of them consider whether ads are third-party or in-house, or indicate that to users. As a result, very, very few users who rely on ad blockers ever allow ads on any sites, even those that strictly observe same-origin policies about ads.

2023-10-04 15:07:40

Shadowserver, which helps organizations learn when their networks appear to be compromised, had its domain suspended at Network Solutions. Who wants to take bets on the underlying reason?
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosecmediaeu/media_attachments/files/111/177/367/566/283/454/original/3bc77f8cf9cc1a7a.png

2023-09-22 16:39:34

Went to get a Covid booster yesterday at Walgreens after my wife made us 5:30 pm and 5:45 appointments for a shot. Showed up on time, only to be told they didn't have me in their system.
30 minutes later, it dawned on them that maybe I'd never filled a prescription through their system before. Turns out, even though my wife had filled out all the right forms, they had a pile more forms for me and proceeded to ask me a bunch of personal health info in front of a long line.
15 minutes later, and 45 min after my "appointment" they were still registering me in Walgreen's system. I left because we also had a dinner reservation a few minutes after that.
Hard to believe they're only just figuring this out. Nobody is going to bother at Walgreens if it's this hard.

2023-09-22 03:17:15

LastPass Requires Users to Update Master Password to at Least 12 Characters
The move comes amid reports of hackers cracking the master passwords for LastPass vaults stolen in a 2022 hack. Longer passwords have been required since 2018, but not for legacy users.
https://me.pcmag.com/en/security/19427/lastpass-requires-users-to-update-master-password-to-at-least-12-characters
Too little, too late, LP:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/09/experts-fear-crooks-are-cracking-keys-stolen-in-lastpass-breach/

2023-09-11 16:19:41

Why doesn't Apple make a TV? They would own that space. Half the people I know would happily buy one, if it meant no spyware, user choice, and never buying another "smart" TV again. Even if the cost was 2x normal smart tv.

2023-09-09 18:13:33

I suppose it's not rocket surgery to figure out which is the real me here. How/should one report these kinds of things for investigation? I never much cared on Twitter about imposters because reporting them never did anything. These are all using my Twitter photo for profile pics.
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosecmediaeu/media_attachments/files/111/036/539/156/573/620/original/07555939e1ce1458.png

2023-09-02 13:35:02

Finally getting around to watching For All Mankind on Apple TV and haven't enjoyed a show as much in a while (well, after Foundation and Severance).
Anyway, FAM has me thinking about the pilot for a show 40 years from now about how we missed huge opportunities to capture the public's imagination and interest in defending the cybers. A future when eventually the good/non-evil side simply became too outnumbered, and everyone just decided AI should run things because there were safer occupations.

2023-08-25 01:22:18

Every day I receive multiple emails offering to pay me to run content or host links on my site. Normally, I just delete these invitations. Not anymore. I'm going to start signing up for all of them. No, I'm not gonna publish their stupid content or include their spammy links. I just wanna see what they're promoting, and where it all goes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og1KehTSX80

2023-08-24 12:53:57

Yikes!
"CloudNordic has told customers to consider all of their data lost following a ransomware infection that encrypted the large Danish cloud provider's servers and "paralyzed CloudNordic completely," according to the IT outfit's online confession.
"The intrusion happened in the early-morning hours of August 18 during which miscreants shut down all of CloudNordic's systems, wiping both company and customers' websites and email systems. Since then, the IT team and third-party responders have been working to restore punters' data — but as of Tuesday, it's not looking great."
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/23/ransomware_wipes_cloudnordic/

2023-08-23 15:52:40

Been dealing w/ a heart condition called atrial fibrillation for many years, and for a long time medicine kept it under control. Until recently. Was told that the new Apple watches will let you know when/if you're in afib. I already had an older one but all the literature said the newer was better at afib detection and monitoring.
I've found that while there were a few times over the past few months where the watch has alerted me to my heart being in afib, it's more the exception than the rule. Because apparently I've been in afib long enough w/out noticing that the heart thinks this is normal. Got a real heart monitor and found out it's pretty much in afib all the time.
Obviously, this is less than ideal, and we're looking at various treatment options. The point of this post, however, is just to say that if you're counting on your Apple watch to let you know if your afib is under control, you probably shouldn't.

2023-08-19 14:35:15

et tu, LinkedIn?
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosecmediaeu/media_attachments/files/110/916/774/835/592/018/original/2e0e35c61bca1d3d.png

2023-08-17 16:00:37

CNN is reporting that someone has doxed at least half of the members of the Fulton grand jury that just returned the criminal indictment against Trump, w/ anonymous users calling for violence against them. I guess this is the new normal. SMH.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/17/politics/fulton-county-grand-jurors-far-right-internet/index.html

2023-08-14 13:34:20

This is fine, lol.
"One day after California green-lighted a massive expansion of driverless robotaxis in San Francisco, the implications became clear.
At about 11 p.m. Friday, as many as 10 Cruise driverless taxis blocked two narrow streets in the center of the city’s lively North Beach bar and restaurant district. All traffic came to a standstill on Vallejo Street and around two corners on Grant. Human-driven cars sat stuck behind and in between the robotaxis, which might as well have been boulders: no one knew how to move them.
The cars sat motionless with parking lights flashing for 15 minutes, then woke up and moved on, witnesses said."
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-12/cruise-robotaxis-come-to-a-standstill

2023-08-12 21:25:45

Just watched The Edge for like the umpteenth time b/c it was on. Started researching the Grizzly in the movie, and he has quite the IMDB roster.
Here's a video of Bart the Bear, most famousest bear ever, and his trainer. I'm dying watching this bloopers reel. I reckon not many people get to experience this and live to tell about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtmQ_uddLK0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_the_Bear

2023-04-05 14:51:18

Trellix has a good synopsis of the supply side of Genesis Market, in which various vendors or users of infostealer malware agree to sell the service a continuous feed of freshly stolen passwords, authentication cookies and fingerprints from compromised systems in their botnets.
See subsection "Malware Linked to Genesis Market" https://www.trellix.com/en-us/about/newsroom/stories/research/genesis-market-no-longer-feeds-the-evil-cookie-monster.html
"Over the years, Genesis Market has worked with a large variety of malware families to infect victims, where their info stealing scripts were used to steal information, which was used to populate the Genesis Market store. It comes as no surprise that the malware families linked to Genesis Market belong to the usual suspects of common info-stealers, like AZORult, Raccoon, Redline and DanaBot. In February 2023, Genesis Market started to actively recruit sellers. We believe with a moderate level of confidence that this was done to keep up with the growing demand of their users."
"Based on our own information and information provided by law enforcement, it appears Genesis Market dropped and executed their own set of JavaScript (JS) scripts on the infected machines that were provided to them. This set of JS scripts were designed to grab all the relevant information from the victim’s machine in a structured way, ensuring the data quality across all the bots they were offering via their marketplace."

2023-04-03 16:17:27

John Clifton Davies, a 60-year-old con man from the United Kingdom who fled the country in 2015 before being sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud, has enjoyed a successful life abroad swindling technology startups by pretending to be a billionaire investor. Davies' newest invention appears to be "CodesToYou," which purports to be a "full cycle software development company" based in the U.K.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/04/a-serial-tech-investment-scammer-takes-up-coding/
#[0] #[1] #[2] #[3]
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