In an address to Congress this month, President Trump claimed he had “brought free speech back to America.” But barely two months into his second term, the president has waged an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment rights of journalists,…
Category: Krebs on Security
When Getting Phished Puts You in Mortal Danger
Many successful phishing attacks result in a financial loss or malware infection. But falling for some phishing scams, like those currently targeting Russians searching online for organizations that are fighting the Kremlin war machine, can cost you your freedom or…
Arrests in Tap-to-Pay Scheme Powered by Phishing
Authorities in at least two U.S. states last week independently announced arrests of Chinese nationals accused of perpetrating a novel form of tap-to-pay fraud using mobile devices. Details released by authorities so far indicate the mobile wallets being used by…
DOGE to Fired CISA Staff: Email Us Your Personal Data
A message posted on Monday to the homepage of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is the latest exhibit in the Trump administration’s continued disregard for basic cybersecurity protections. The message instructed recently-fired CISA employees to get in…
ClickFix: How to Infect Your PC in Three Easy Steps
A clever malware deployment scheme first spotted in targeted attacks last year has now gone mainstream. In this scam, dubbed “ClickFix,” the visitor to a hacked or malicious website is asked to distinguish themselves from bots by pressing a combination…
Microsoft: 6 Zero-Days in March 2025 Patch Tuesday
Microsoft today issued more than 50 security updates for its various Windows operating systems, including fixes for a whopping six zero-day vulnerabilities that are already seeing active exploitation. This article has been indexed from Krebs on Security Read the original…
Alleged Co-Founder of Garantex Arrested in India
Authorities in India today arrested the alleged co-founder of Garantex, a cryptocurrency exchange sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2022 for facilitating tens of billions of dollars in money laundering by transnational criminal and cybercriminal organizations. Sources close to the…
Feds Link $150M Cyberheist to 2022 LastPass Hacks
In September 2023, KrebsOnSecurity published findings from security researchers who concluded that a series of six-figure cyberheists across dozens of victims resulted from thieves cracking master passwords stolen from the password manager service LastPass in 2022. In a court filing…
Who is the DOGE and X Technician Branden Spikes?
At 49, Branden Spikes isn’t just one of the oldest technologists who has been involved in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). As the current director of information technology at X/Twitter and an early hire at PayPal, Zip2, Tesla…
Notorious Malware, Spam Host “Prospero” Moves to Kaspersky Lab
One of the most notorious providers of abuse-friendly “bulletproof” web hosting for cybercriminals has started routing its operations through networks run by the Russian antivirus and security firm Kaspersky Lab, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. This article has been indexed from Krebs…
U.S. Soldier Charged in AT&T Hack Searched “Can Hacking Be Treason”
A U.S. Army soldier who pleaded guilty last week to leaking phone records for high-ranking U.S. government officials searched online for non-extradition countries and for an answer to the question “can hacking be treason?” prosecutors in the case said Wednesday.…
Trump 2.0 Brings Cuts to Cyber, Consumer Protections
One month into his second term, President Trump’s actions to shrink the government through mass layoffs, firings and withholding funds allocated by Congress have thrown federal cybersecurity and consumer protection programs into disarray. At the same time, agencies are battling…
How Phished Data Turns into Apple & Google Wallets
Carding — the underground business of stealing, selling and swiping stolen payment card data — has long been the dominion of Russia-based hackers. Happily, the broad deployment of more secure chip-based payment cards in the United States has weakened the…
Nearly a Year Later, Mozilla is Still Promoting OneRep
In mid-March 2024, KrebsOnSecurity revealed that the founder of the personal data removal service Onerep also founded dozens of people-search companies. Shortly after that investigation was published, Mozilla said it would stop bundling Onerep with the Firefox browser and wind…
Microsoft Patch Tuesday, February 2025 Edition
Microsoft today issued security updates to fix at least 56 vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and supported software, including two zero-day flaws that are being actively exploited. This article has been indexed from Krebs on Security Read the original…
Teen on Musk’s DOGE Team Graduated from ‘The Com’
Wired reported this week that a 19-year-old working for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was given access to sensitive US government systems even though his past association with cybercrime communities should have precluded him from gaining the…
Experts Flag Security, Privacy Risks in DeepSeek AI App
New mobile apps from the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek have remained among the top three “free” downloads for Apple and Google devices since their debut on Jan. 25, 2025. But experts caution that many of DeepSeek’s design choices…
Who’s Behind the Seized Forums ‘Cracked’ & ‘Nulled’?
The FBI joined authorities across Europe last week in seizing domain names for Cracked and Nulled, English-language cybercrime forums with millions of users that trafficked in stolen data, hacking tools and malware. An investigation into the history of these communities…
FBI, Dutch Police Disrupt ‘Manipulaters’ Phishing Gang
The FBI and authorities in The Netherlands this week seized a number of servers and domains for a hugely popular spam and malware dissemination service operating out of Pakistan. The proprietors of the service, who use the collective nickname “The…
Infrastructure Laundering: Blending in with the Cloud
In an effort to blend in and make their malicious traffic tougher to block, hosting firms catering to cybercriminals in China and Russia increasingly are funneling their operations through major U.S. cloud providers. Research published this week on one such…