Brian Krebs gets sued

Topic

New Reply

Data breaches are public relations nightmares. But suing Brian Krebs for defamation over what he posted over a vendor breach… wow.  (I’m not going to name the vendor, sorry to be a but obtuse about it but it has a bit of a chilling effect).

 

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

2 users thanked author for this post.

AJNorth, DrBonzo

Reply | Quote

Replies

“shooting the messenger” is quite a popular activity since very-old-times, probably as old as mankind is.

* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *

1 user thanked author for this post.

Steve

Reply | Quote

Depending on the allegations and on how good are the lawyers representing each side, with some luck a judge could dismiss this for lack of  merit, as a frivolous law suit.

Someone like Krebs might have been in this situation before and learned how to handle it and has a good lawyer on retainer. I imagine this comes with the territory.

Let’s wish him luck.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

2 users thanked author for this post.

Steve, AJNorth

Reply | Quote

Susan Bradley wrote:

I’m not going to name the vendor,

Why. The vendor’s name appears blue/black on white in the Twitter post.

Reply | Quote

Which is over there not over here.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

Reply | Quote

Ubi-quiti has had its problems before, they apparently sent 40 some million bucks to some one by mistake 7 years ago. Could’a happened to anyone. (With $40000000 they did not care too much about)

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

1 user thanked author for this post.

OscarCP

Reply | Quote

I am doing my taxes and, reading this, wondering how much I would have to pay for forty mil. On top of my other income. Probably I would also have to fill and file a bunch of additional and really arcane IRS forms with bewildering instructions. And might end up audited, for my pains. So, please, Ubiquiti: don’t send me 40 mil. Maybe 39,999,999.99?

IF what Ubiquiti claims is true and can be proved, then Krebs would be in trouble. But sending an exculpation to the whole wide world in a Twitt? Really? With legal action under way? How clever is that?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Reply | Quote

Any sober Judge would put this one into the Tosspot Pile in a N.Y. Minute.

“Uh, let’s see…defendant pointed out plaintiff’s publicly well-documented shortcomings…case dismissed! <wham!>

Reply | Quote

The Register (in the UK) often has a good take on such stories, and the comments which follow the story often contain some intelligence.

Like “I cannot wait for the EFF to take up Brian’s case and defend him pro bono.”

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

Reply | Quote

From a PR perspective, this has to be one of the most stupid blunders a company has made in quite awhile. Also, if I were a betting man I’d lay odds on Brian being the winner here.

Can’t get the song “I shot the sheriff” out of my head …

1 user thanked author for this post.

wavy

Reply | Quote

And here we go …..

Ars: Ubiquiti sues journalist

Judging by the article’s comments thus far, I may have made an understatement above.

Reply | Quote

Carl, I want to thank you explicitly, with written words, because reading the article, and specially the comments following the article, has been very amusing. So: thanks for the link to this article&discussion. Good luck to Krebs, assuming that he might need it, which he might not. Now it is up to the judge and the lawyers representing both parties, and how good, or how bad they are.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Reply | Quote

I hope that this goes away as a frivolous lawsuit.

From a former VCIO perspective, Ubiquiti was not quite clear about the breach and its extent.  The “breach” was someone setting up an Azure server and mirroring their entire system from inside, according to my previous security team.  They were also very lacking in remediation and seemed to just shrug it off (it wasn’t really a breach after all) The remediation solution from Ubiquiti was to manually update the firmware on EVERY compromised product with a firmware that we weren’t able to get access to for a couple of weeks after the discovery. We replaced all Ubiquiti product with another vendor simply due to the trust relationship being compromised.  I left the organization before I ever heard if Ubiquiti fixed this fully, though I hope they actually did.

Reply | Quote