Thankfully, award-winning US computer security reporter Brian Krebs is safe.
Nobody was harmed. But they could have been.
Given a DOSed website, a fake and libelous FBI letter sent to his website host, and a dinner party delayed by a SWAT team training guns on him and ordering him to "Put your hands in the air!", Krebs last week surely endured the most dramatic retribution ever meted out to a security blogger.
Krebs has a good idea of the specific criminal element behind the trio of attacks. Since the dramatic events of Thursday, he's traced the denial-of-service attack to a common operator who apparently launched a similar attack on Ars Technica following its coverage of Krebs's victimization.
As described by his fellow security scribe Dan Goodin at Ars Technica, Krebs is known for work that includes:
- "Exposés [that] completely shut down a California hosting service that coddled spammers and child pornographers and severely disrupted an organized crime syndicate known as Russian Business Network" and, more recently,
- "Investigative journalism that followed the money to the people who sell malware exploit kits, illicitly procured credit reports, and denial-of-service services in underground forums."
Last week, one or more of those enemies targeted him, likely in retaliation for his most recent investigation.
What actually went on? Full report here.
netizens left a footprint.