According to a report released Friday by the cyber intelligence group IntelCrawler, a 17-year-old Russian man, username “ree4,” appears to have been the author of the point-of-sale malware used for hacks at Target, Neiman Marcus, and six other large U.S. retailers, maybe more.
IntelCrawler says that ree4 sold his “BlackPOS” malware to more than 60 Eastern European cybercriminals, plus some in other regions. He is based in St. Petersburg and is well-known in forums and the wider hacking community. The IntelCrawler report notes that he wrote other popular malicious tools, “such as ‘Ree4 mail brute’, … social networks accounts hacking and DDoS attacks trainings.” IntelCrawler’s president, Dan Clements, told PCWorld that the group is “90 percent” sure about its conclusions.
But ree4 doesn’t seem to have personally taken part in the Target or Neiman Marcus hacks beyond writing and selling the malware. When contacted by the Washington Post, Target declined to comment on the IntelCrawler report. A Neiman Marcus spokeswoman specifically addressed one part, which said that hackers were able to plant the BlackPOS malware because the credit card terminals at the retailers they targeted had default passwords that were guessable and therefore weak. The Neiman Marcus spokeswoman said that she hadn’t heard anything about weak passwords from those with direct knowledge of Neiman Marcus’ network. Though the Target and Neiman Marcus hacks originally appeared to have been launched at the same time by the same people, it is less clear now whether they were related through more than BlackPOS. In fact it seems increasingly likely that they were not.
The report quoted IntelCrawler’s CEO, Andrew Komarov, as saying that more BlackPOS hacks, largely of department stores, are going to come to light soon. This agrees with an article Reuters published on Jan. 12, citing anonymous sources who said they knew of at least three other breaches.
As if all of this wasn’t enough, though, the New York Times reported Thursday that Neiman Marcus was hacked in July, didn’t discover the problem until mid-December, and wasn’t able to get the situation under control until last week. The company says that customers’ Social Security numbers and dates of birth do not seem to have been stolen. And Neiman Marcus does not collect customer PIN numbers.
But controversy is brewing about whether the company should have disclosed the hack when it first discovered it in December. It seems that Neiman Marcus admitted the breach when it did only because journalist Brian Krebs discovered the situation and posted about it on his blog. And with so many reports that other companies have been hacked but have not yet come forward, it seems to be time for a discussion about security breach disclosures for retailers.
Regulations in 46 states mandate disclosure when hackers steal customer information in a cyber attack. But different states have different requirements for how long retailers can delay giving notice if there is an ongoing investigation into the hack. There is also state-to-state variation in how much information the retailers have to release about the incident.
Joseph DeMarco, the former head of the cyber crime unit at the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, told Newsday, “It’s a judgment call. A breach investigation could take weeks or months before you know enough to have a legal obligation to disclose.” But consumer advocates are calling for regulation revisions and federal intervention. In summary, this enormous situation seems pretty out of control at the moment.
Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.
