Krebs On Security

Who’s Tracking You? Use This New Service to Find Out https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/08/whos-tracking-you-use-this-new-service-to-find-out/ It can be daunting to determine who's responsible for showing ads on the websites we visit, or who's harvesting data from the mobile apps we use every day. That information is already semi-public, but it is not easily parsed and traditionally much of it has remained walled away in the hands of large advertising platforms. Not anymore: A powerful and free new service called DecryptAds scrapes and correlates this adtech data and makes it simple to quickly learn a great deal about the entities that are tracking you.

Microsoft Plugs Nearly 400 Security Holes https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/08/microsoft-plugs-nearly-400-security-holes/ Microsoft today released updates to remedy at least 398 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and supported software, including one weakness that is already being actively exploited and two others that were publicly detailed prior to today.

Canadian Man Pleads Guilty in Snowflake Extortions https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/08/canadian-man-pleads-guilty-in-snowflake-extortions/ A 26-year-old Canadian man once described as one of the most consequential cybercrime threat actors of 2024 has pleaded guilty to computer fraud and conspiracy to hack and extort more than 165 organizations that used the cloud data storage provider Snowflake. Connor Riley Moucka, of Kitchener, Ontario, also admitted to stealing call and text history records of more than 100 million AT&T customers.

Read This Before You Buy That TV Streaming Stick https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/read-this-before-you-buy-that-tv-streaming-stick/ Security experts have been sounding the alarm for years about the risks of using generic TV boxes that promise unlimited content streaming for a one-time fee, warning that they secretly rent the user's Internet connection out to strangers. But a groundbreaking new analysis finds these devices also routinely spoof themselves as mobile phones clicking ads on AI-generated websites as part of sprawling operation that seeks to defraud online merchants and advertising networks.

LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/lg-to-ban-residential-proxies-from-smart-tv-apps/ The home appliance giant LG Electronics USA said this week it plans to suspend any apps built for its smart TVs that turn one's television into an always-on residential proxy node. The move comes less than a month after researchers found that more than 42 percent of games and other apps available for download on LG's webOS store allow unknown third-parties to route their Internet traffic through a user's TV.

Microsoft Patches a Record 570 Security Flaws https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/microsoft-patches-a-record-570-security-flaws/ Microsoft Corp. today released software updates to plug at least 570 security holes in its Windows operating systems and other software, almost triple the number of vulnerabilities the software giant fixed in its record-smashing Patch Tuesday release last month. Microsoft attributed the burgeoning patch counts to vulnerability discoveries aided by artificial intelligence.

Lessons Learned from CISA’s Recent GitHub Leak https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/lessons-learned-from-cisas-recent-github-leak/ The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a postmortem on a data leak in which a contractor published dozens of internal CISA credentials -- including AWS Govcloud keys -- in a public GitHub repository for almost six months before being notified by KrebsOnSecurity. Experts say the gaps identified in the agency's initial response provide important lessons that all security teams should absorb.

Felons, Fraudsters Flog Offensive Cybersecurity Startup https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/felons-fraudsters-flog-offensive-cybersecurity-startup/ A cybersecurity startup dangling millions of dollars to acquire zero-day security vulnerabilities in popular software is run by a pair of far-right conspiracy theorists and convicted felons whose most recent ventures included fake intelligence companies and a now-defunct AI-based lobbying platform they operated under assumed names.

FBI Seizes NetNut Proxy Platform, Popa Botnet https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/fbi-seizes-netnut-proxy-platform-popa-botnet/ The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said today it worked with industry partners to seize hundreds of domains associated with NetNut, a sprawling residential proxy service operated by the publicly-traded Israeli company Alarum Technologies [NASDAQ: ALAR]. The action comes roughly two weeks after KrebsOnSecurity published findings from multiple security firms connecting NetNut to the Popa botnet, a collection of at least two million devices that have been compromised by malicious software with little or no consent from victims.

Scattered Spider Hackers Plead Guilty on Day 1 of Trial https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/06/scattered-spider-hackers-plead-guilty-on-day-1-of-trial/ Two men pleaded guilty in the United Kingdom this week to criminal charges stemming from an August 2024 cyberattack that crippled Transport for London, the entity responsible for the public transport network in the Greater London area. The duo were key members of a prolific cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider, and their guilty pleas came on the first day of what was expected to be a six-week trial.

‘Popa’ Botnet Linked to Publicly-Traded Israeli Firm https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/06/popa-botnet-linked-to-publicly-traded-israeli-firm/ For the past four years, a sprawling Android-based botnet called Popa has forced millions of consumer TV boxes to relay Internet traffic linked to advertising fraud, account takeovers, and mass data-scraping efforts. This week, researchers from multiple security firms concluded that the Popa botnet is linked to NetNut, a "residential proxy" provider operated by the publicly-traded Israeli firm Alarum Technologies Ltd [NASDAQ: ALAR].

Who Runs the Ransomware Group ‘The Gentlemen?’ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/06/who-runs-the-ransomware-group-the-gentlemen/ A cybercrime group known as The Gentlemen has emerged as the second most active ransomware gang by victim count, rapidly attracting a talented pool of hackers through an aggressive recruitment strategy that promises affiliates 90 percent of any ransom paid by victims. This post examines clues pointing to a real life identity for the administrator of The Gentlemen ransomware group.

A Record-Breaking Patch Tuesday for June 2026 https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/06/a-record-breaking-patch-tuesday-for-june-2026/ Microsoft today released software updates to plug nearly 200 security holes across its Windows operating systems and supported software, a record number of fixes for the company's monthly Patch Tuesday cycle. Nearly three dozen of those bugs earned Microsoft's most dire "critical" rating, and exploit code for at least three of the weaknesses is now publicly available.

Hackers Used Meta’s AI Support Bot to Seize Instagram Accounts https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/06/hackers-used-metas-ai-support-bot-to-seize-instagram-accounts/ The Instagram accounts for the Obama White House and the Chief Master Sergeant of the U.S. Space Force were briefly defaced with pro-Iranian images and messages over the weekend, after instructions began circulating on Telegram showing how to trick Meta's "AI support assistant" bot into resetting account passwords.

Netherlands Seizes 800 Servers, Arrests 2 for Aiding Cyberattacks https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/05/netherlands-seizes-800-servers-arrests-2-for-aiding-cyberattacks/ Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested the co-owners of two related Internet hosting companies for operating IT infrastructure used by Russia to carry out cyberattacks, influence operations and disinformation campaigns inside the European Union. The two men were the focus of a 2025 KrebsOnSecurity story about how their hosting companies had assumed control over the technical infrastructure of Stark Industries Solutions, an Internet service provider sanctioned last year by the EU as a frequent staging ground for cyber mischief from Russia's intelligence agencies.

Lawmakers Demand Answers as CISA Tries to Contain Data Leak https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/05/lawmakers-demand-answers-as-cisa-tries-to-contain-data-leak/ Lawmakers in both houses of Congress are demanding answers from the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) after KrebsOnSecurity reported this week that a CISA contractor intentionally published AWS GovCloud keys and a vast trove of other agency secrets on a public GitHub account. The inquiry comes as CISA is still struggling to contain the breach and invalidate the leaked credentials.

Alleged Kimwolf Botmaster ‘Dort’ Arrested, Charged in U.S. and Canada https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/05/alleged-kimwolf-botmaster-dort-arrested-charged-in-u-s-and-canada/ Canadian authorities on Wednesday arrested a 23-year-old Ottawa man on suspicion of building and operating Kimwolf, a fast spreading Internet-of-Things botnet that enslaved millions of devices for use in a series of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks over the past six months. KrebsOnSecurity publicly named the suspect in February 2026 after the accused launched a volley of DDoS, doxing and swatting campaigns against this author and a security researcher. He now faces criminal hacking charges in both Canada and the United States.

CISA Admin Leaked AWS GovCloud Keys on Github https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/05/cisa-admin-leaked-aws-govcloud-keys-on-github/ Until this past weekend, a contractor for the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintained a public GitHub repository that exposed credentials to several highly privileged AWS GovCloud accounts and a large number of internal CISA systems. Security experts said the public archive included files detailing how CISA builds, tests and deploys software internally, and that it represents one of the most egregious government data leaks in recent history.

Patch Tuesday, May 2026 Edition https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/05/patch-tuesday-may-2026-edition/ Artificial intelligence platforms may be just as susceptible to social engineering as human beings, but they are proving remarkably good at finding security vulnerabilities in human-made computer code. That reality is on full display this month with some of the more widely-used software makers -- including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Oracle -- fixing near record volumes of security bugs, and/or quickening the tempo of their patch releases.

Canvas Breach Disrupts Schools & Colleges Nationwide https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/05/canvas-breach-disrupts-schools-colleges-nationwide/ An ongoing data extortion attack targeting the widely-used education technology platform Canvas disrupted classes and coursework at school districts and universities across the United States today, after a cybercrime group defaced the service's login page with a ransom demand that threatened to leak data from 275 million students and faculty across nearly 9,000 educational institutions.