Brian Krebs reports on the underworld activity sparked by recent leaks of personal data from databases at Adult Friend Finder and mSpy. Rather than cash in via using stolen credentials, the play appears to be extortion and blackmail. With mSpy, a user’s iTunes username and password are necessary to load the program. Now, those who have access to the leaked credentials are remotely locking phones and “the only way to get their data back is to pay a ransom.” Similarly, while Adult Friend Finder did not lose passwords or payment information, ne’er-do-wells have the ability to plug email addresses available for $17k in Bitcoin (or free via sharing) into Facebook and find married men who were using the dating service and blackmail them. This sort of behavior makes the recent loss of U.S. House lawmaker data via CareFirst BlueCross potentially very troubling. Editor’s Note: Brian Krebs will serve as keynote speaker at the upcoming IAPP Privacy.Security.Risk. conference in Las Vegas.
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