Latest Cybersecurity News and Articles

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US Navy releases cybersecurity goals for 2023

The U.S. Navy released a 2023 cybersecurity plan, Information Superiority Vision, outlining security steps the department will take to secure data.

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Steve Hodges named State of Georgia CISO

Cybersecurity veteran Steve Hodges has been appointed as the new Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the State of Georgia.

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5 trust-building tips from a risk-minded CISO

Here are five essential trust-building actions CISOs must take to properly secure their organization.

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Ransomware attacks decreased 61% in 2022

Ransomware declined 61% in 2022, according to a survey from Delinea. The malware tactic continued to affect business reputation and cybersecurity.

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Experian Glitch Exposing Credit Files Lasted 47 Days

On Dec. 23, 2022, KrebsOnSecurity alerted big-three consumer credit reporting bureau Experian that identity thieves had worked out how to bypass its security and access any consumer's full credit report -- armed with nothing more than a person's name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number. Experian fixed the glitch, but remained silent about the incident for a month. This week, however, Experian acknowledged that the security failure persisted for nearly seven weeks, between Nov. 9, 2022 and Dec. 26, 2022.

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Administrator of RSOCKS Proxy Botnet Pleads Guilty

Denis Emelyantsev, a 36-year-old Russian man accused of running a massive botnet called RSOCKS that stitched malware into millions of devices worldwide, pleaded guilty to two counts of computer crime violations in a California courtroom this week. The plea comes just months after Emelyantsev was extradited from Bulgaria, where he told investigators, “America is looking for me because I have enormous information and they need it.”

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New T-Mobile Breach Affects 37 Million Accounts

T-Mobile today disclosed a data breach affecting tens of millions of customer accounts, its second major data exposure in as many years. In a filing with federal regulators, T-Mobile said an investigation determined that someone abused its systems to harvest subscriber data tied to approximately 37 million current customer accounts.

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Thinking of Hiring or Running a Booter Service? Think Again.

Most people who operate DDoS-for-hire services attempt to hide their true identities and location. Proprietors of these so-called “booter” or “stresser” services — designed to knock websites and users offline — have long operated in a legally murky area of cybercrime law. But until recently, their biggest concern wasn’t avoiding capture or shutdown by the feds: It was minimizing harassment from unhappy customers or victims, and insulating themselves against incessant attacks from competing DDoS-for-hire services. And then there are booter store operators like John Dobbs, a 32-year-old computer science graduate student living in Honolulu, Hawaii. For at least a decade until late last year, Dobbs openly operated IPStresser[.]com, a popular and powerful attack-for-hire service that he registered with the state of Hawaii using his real name and address. Likewise, the domain was registered in Dobbs’s name and hometown in Pennsylvania. The only work experience Dobbs listed on his resume was as a freelance developer from 2013 to the present day. Dobbs’s resume doesn’t name his booter service, but in it he brags about maintaining websites with half a million page views daily, and “designing server deployments for performance, high-availability and security.” In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice seized Dobbs’s IPStresser website and charged him with one count of aiding and abetting computer intrusions. Prosecutors say his service attracted more than two million registered users, and was responsible for launching a staggering 30 million distinct DDoS attacks.

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Microsoft Patch Tuesday, January 2023 Edition

Microsoft today released updates to fix nearly 100 security flaws in its Windows operating systems and other software. Highlights from the first Patch Tuesday of 2023 include a zero-day vulnerability in Windows, printer software flaws reported by the U.S. National Security Agency, and a critical Microsoft SharePoint Server bug that allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to make an anonymous connection.

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Identity Thieves Bypassed Experian Security to View Credit Reports

Identity thieves have been exploiting a glaring security weakness in the website of Experian, one of the big three consumer credit reporting bureaus. Normally, Experian requires that those seeking a copy of their credit report successfully answer several multiple choice questions about their financial history. But until the end of 2022, Experian's website allowed anyone to bypass these questions and go straight to the consumer's report. All that was needed was the person's name, address, birthday and Social Security number.

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Happy 13th Birthday, KrebsOnSecurity!

KrebsOnSecurity turns 12 years old today. That's a crazy long time for an independent media outlet these days, but then again I'm liable to keep doing this as long as they keep letting me! Thanks to your readership and support, I was able to spend more time in 2022 on in-depth investigative stories -- the really satisfying kind with the potential to affect positive change. Some of that work is highlighted in the 2022 Year in Breaches review below.

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The Equifax Breach Settlement Offer is Real, For Now

Millions of people likely just received an email or snail mail notice saying they're eligible to claim a class action payment in connection with the 2017 megabreach at consumer credit bureau Equifax. Given the high volume of reader inquiries about this, it seemed worth pointing out that while this particular offer is legit (if paltry), scammers are likely to soon capitalize on public attention to the settlement money.

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Hacked Ring Cams Used to Record Swatting Victims

Two U.S. men have been charged with hacking into the Ring home security cameras of a dozen random people and then "swatting" them -- falsely reporting a violent incident at the target's address to trick local police into responding with force. Prosecutors say the duo used the compromised Ring devices to stream live video footage on social media of police raiding their targets' homes, and to taunt authorities when they arrived.

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Six Charged in Mass Takedown of DDoS-for-Hire Sites

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) today seized four-dozen domains that sold “booter” or “stresser” services — businesses that make it easy and cheap for even non-technical users to launch powerful Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks designed knock targets offline. The DOJ also charged six U.S. men with computer crimes related to their alleged ownership of the popular DDoS-for-hire services.

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Australia to consider European-style right to be forgotten privacy laws

Attorney general promises ‘whole range’ of modernisations of the Privacy Act to follow new customer data protection lawsFollow our Australia news live blog for the latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastThe right to be forgotten and a right to sue for privacy breaches will be considered for the next tranche of Australian legislation, the attorney general has said.Mark Dreyfus made the comments on Monday, promising to consider European-style privacy reforms after his bill increasing penalties for companies that fail to protect customer data passed in 2022.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

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Cybersecurity firm links Piers Morgan Twitter hack to leak of 400m records

Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison among politicians and celebrities whose details were in sample of allegedly hacked data published onlineThe former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison appears to have been caught up in a leak of partial data on 400 million Twitter users, along with celebrities including the model Cara Delevingne, US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and pop singer Shawn Mendes.Morrison’s Twitter account was included in a sample of data released by an alleged cybercriminal last week.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

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Clare O’Neil on national security amid cyber hacks and threats to democracy

In the final episode of Australian Politics for 2022, political editor Katharine Murphy speaks to the minister for home affairs and cyber security Clare O’Neil about the strategic challenges for Australia and the region. These include the increased likelihood of cyber-attacks, decreasing trust in democracy and growing risks of foreign interferenceRead more: Home affairs and the long view – Clare O’Neil’s speech at the National Press Club Continue reading...

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TPG reveals emails of 15,000 iiNet and Westnet customers exposed in hack

Telecommunications company says hacker searched for customers’ cryptocurrency and financial information Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastTelecommunications giant TPG has revealed an email-hosting service used by up to 15,000 iiNet and Westnet business customers has been breached, with the hacker looking for cryptocurrency and other financial information.TPG said in a release to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on Wednesday that cybersecurity firm Mandiant had found evidence of unauthorised access to a Hosted Exchange service used by iiNet and Westnet business customers. Continue reading...

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Telstra sorry for publishing up to 130,000 customers’ details online

Release of names, numbers and addresses of some unlisted customers was not due to cyber-attackFollow our Australia news live blog for the latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastTelstra has apologised after publishing the details of thousands of customers online.The company said the release of the names, numbers and addresses of some unlisted customers was not the result of any malicious cyber-attack and was a mistake. Reports say up to 130,000 customers have been affected.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

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Apple announces new security and privacy measures amid surge in cyber-attacks

Encryption of iCloud storage means the information will be safeguarded from hackers as well as government agenciesApple announced a suite of security and privacy improvements on Wednesday that the company is pitching as a way to help people protect their data from hackers, including one that civil liberty and privacy advocates have long pushed for. The tech giant will soon allow users to choose to secure more of the data backed up to their iCloud using end-to-end encryption, which means no one but the user will be able to access that information. Continue reading...