The people who dislike cybersecurity blogger Brian Krebs aren’t subtle. In early January, Krebs got a bag of poop in the mail. That was better than the time last summer when he received 13 packets of heroin. Both were way, way better than the day last March when a SWAT team descended on his doorstep, lured by a fake report of a hostage situation. “Having multiple automatic weapons pointed at your head is not my idea of a great time,” Krebs deadpans. “The kind of work I do, I paint a big target on my head.” Krebs’s talent for exposing the weaknesses in online security has earned him respect in the IT business and loathing among cybercriminals. His track record of scoops, including the Dec. 18 revelation that hackers stole tens of millions of customers’ financial data from Target (TGT), has helped him become the rare blogger who supports himself on the strength of his reputation for hard-nosed reporting. (Target didn’t respond to a request for comment.) Krebs often posts step-by-step details—without outing his sources—of how he’s uncovered which hackers breached whose corporate defenses. “That’s something people really want,” says Andy Ellis, chief security officer at Akamai Technologies (AKAM). “Everything he writes is some of our best open-source intelligence.”
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-16/brian-krebs-the-cybersecurity-blogger-hackers-love-to-hate
