Security News

File this under “Life is stranger than fiction”: You know you’re getting under the skin of cyber criminals when they pass the metaphorical collection plate to have a package full of illegal drugs sent to your house. I suppose this particular cybercrime reporter, Brian Krebs, could also have made that determination after criminals paid his cable bill for three years in advance, using stolen credit cards. Or when “swatters” called in a phony hostage situation that resulted in a heavily armed SWAT team surrounding his home, or during any of the countless Denial of Service attacks against his site.

Fortunately for Brian Krebs, he has developed a pretty good relationship with the local law enforcement agents, otherwise this story could have ended a whole lot less hilariously. I suppose once you’ve been the target of a few such pranks, everyone learns to err on the side of skepticism. With a streak of good fortune, Krebs just so happened to be on the forum where an administrator was hatching the new plan to prank him; he was able to monitor the scam in real time. This allowed Krebs to call the authorities before the prank could come to fruition with an anonymous tip from a “neighbor.”

There are very few people involved with fighting cybercrime that are willing to put themselves out there the way Krebs has, for obvious reasons. Many folks labor on our behalves anonymously to avoid the sort of grief that Brian receives (in abundance, I might add). These folks all deserve a great deal of gratitude for the work they do in keeping the Internet a safer place.