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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Man who uncovered Target credit card fiasco leads risky life |
| 2014-02-21 |
| NYT: SAN FRANCISCO -- In the last year, Eastern European cybercriminals have stolen Brian Krebs's identity a half dozen times, brought down his website, included his name and some unpleasant epithets in their malware code, sent fecal matter and heroin to his doorstep, and called a SWAT team to his home just as his mother was arriving for dinner. "I can't imagine what my neighbors think of me," he said dryly. Mr. Krebs, 41, tries to write pieces that cannot be found elsewhere. His widely read cybersecurity blog, Krebs on Security, covers a particularly dark corner of the Internet: profit-seeking cybercriminals, many based in Eastern Europe, who make billions off pharmaceutical sales, malware, spam, frauds and heists like the recent ones that Mr. Krebs was first to uncover at Adobe, Target and Neiman Marcus. "I would put him up against the best threat intelligence analyst," said Rodney Joffe, senior vice president at Neustar, an Internet infrastructure firm. "Many of us in the industry go to him to help us understand what the Eastern European criminals are doing, how they work with each other and who is doing what to whom." "There's a lot going on in this industry that impedes the flow of information," Mr. Krebs said. "And there's a lot of money to be made in having intelligence and information about what's going on in the underworld. It's big business but most people don't want to pay for it, which explains why they come to someone like me." Mr. Krebs is "doing the security industry an enormous favor by disseminating real-time threat information," said Barmak Meftah, chief executive of AlienVault, a threat-detection service. "We are only as strong as our information. Unless we are very specific and effective about exchanging threat data when one of us gets breached, we will always be a step behind the attackers." "A lot of what Brian does would scare the hell out of traditional newsroom editors," said Russ Walker, Mr. Krebs's former editor at The Post. "I don't think he crossed the lines journalistically, but he was living a different type of experience." "The work that he's done exposing Eastern European hackers has been seminal," said Tom Kellermann, a cybersecurity expert who is a managing director at Alvarez and Marsal, a turnaround firm. "But Brian needs a bodyguard." In the meantime, hackers have been competing in a dangerous game of one-upmanship to see who can pull the worst prank on Mr. Krebs. They often steal his identity. One opened a $20,000 credit line in his name. Admirers have made more than $1,000 in bogus PayPal donations to his blog using hacked accounts. Others have paid his cable bill for three years with stolen credit cards. The antics can be dangerous. In March, as Mr. Krebs was preparing to have his mother over for dinner, he opened his front door to find a police SWAT team pointing semiautomatic guns in his direction. Only after his wife returned home from the grocery store to find him handcuffed did the police realize Mr. Krebs had been the victim of "swatting." Someone had called the police and falsely reported a murder at their home. It's hard for me to believe he still answers his door in person. One would think someone so technically adept would have a method to screen all visitors to his property without exposing himself to being shot in his doorway. |
| Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418 |
| #1 Yet another reason to not answer knocks at the door: Christopher Roupe, 17, was shot by a Euharlee police officer 14 Feb 2014 when he answered the door. Police say he was pointing a handgun, not the video game device. Family lawyer Cole Law said Roupe was about to watch a movie. “We don't know where that statement came from. The eyewitnesses on the scene clearly state that he had a Wii controller in his hand. He heard a knock at the door. He asked who it was, there was no response so he opened the door and upon opening the door he was immediately shot in the chest,” Law said. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-02-21 21:29 |