Five years ago, Avast published a blog post that analyzed a database of 2,000 passwords used by hackers. It found that hackers use very easy to crack passwords just like most people. In fact, their most common password was hack! … Read More
Flare Systems Blog
Stay up-to-date on darknet and cybersecurity.
Aftermath Of The Takedown Of A Major Carding Kingpin
We explained in a previous blog where stolen data goes. Last week, Brian Krebs reported that the Russians had shut down a huge card fraud ring. The FSB (Russian Federal Police) arrested 25 individuals connected with 90 online illicit markets. … Read More
News Release: Flare Systems and Donahoe Advisory Group Announce Partnership to Provide Engagement Services in USA and Canada
March 31st 2020, Montreal Flare Systems, a leading provider of fraud prevention and digital risk protection solutions for financial institutions, and Donahoe Advisory Group (DAG), today announced the availability of a combined offering to enable Donahoe Advisory to provide professional … Read More
Where does stolen data go?
The recent indictment of 4 Chinese nationals gives us an opportunity to talk about a topic that touches all the companies that have had the personal or account information they protect stolen: Where does stolen data go? The script kiddie … Read More
The Truth Behind Joker’s Stash / Wawa Announcement
Over the past two weeks, all the leading news agency have reported that the millions of credit cards stolen at Wawa’s stores in the United States in 2019 have been put on sale on the dark web. While accurate in … Read More
Trying Too Hard to Attract Buyers Can Backfire
Malicious actors face a difficult task in online illicit markets. How can they convince others that they are offering a high quality service (ex. selling stolen credit card numbers) without exposing themselves to arrest or providing their victims (ex. financial … Read More
46M cracked passwords – Are people getting better at securing their accounts?
A little over a year ago, malicious actors hacked the MyFitnessPal service. With 143 million users, this was one of the largest hack of credentials ever reported. Now, as Flare Systems is launching its leaked passwords check service, we present … Read More
The Changing Costs of Cybercrime
The Workshop on the Economics of Information Security generates year after year some of the best research on information security. This year is no different with the publication of a new paper on the costs of cybercrime. Here are the … Read More
Extracting Intelligence From Criminal Complaints
On May 3rd, law enforcement agencies announced that they had seized the servers that hosted the Wall Street darknet illicit market. They also arrested the market’s administrators. A copy of criminal complaint is now published publicly. Criminal complaints like these … Read More
What Can We Learn From The Bitcoin Address of a Darknet Illicit Market
The researcher Caleb (@5auth) recently discovered the bitcoin address that the darknet illicit market (Wall Street) administrators used to manage all the purchases made on their market. This leak demonstrates just how much intelligence can be gathered using our BitCluster … Read More