Didn't he dox his enemies and smear Ubiquiti's reputation by believing a criminal's version of events without verifying anything, resulting in a lawsuit, settlement and retraction?
Authority doesn't transfer across all domains. Although this is roughly adjacent to his domain, it's also not his domain.
Consider wikipedia's take on the subject of self published sources:
"
Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work *in the relevant field* has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."
This is his domain. His domain is cyberattacks. This is 100% about cyberattacks. Sure some people are playing politics with it, but it is his domain more than the politicians.
Of thr people mentioned here, we have one of the world's foremost security experts, and a fox news host making a decision about cyber security. There is no evidence that the fox news host's experience is more relevant to this domain.
I get that cybersecurity is his domain. But this is about national defense and international politics no? He is taking a jab at a different (bigger) topic based on his domain.
In my experience when people do this, it doesn't play out, people get overconfident and explore the limits of their competence. But he might be on to something, who knows, time will tell. It's just not statistically likely for me
And in Krebs defense, the topics are interrelated, it's not like he just gave his opinion on a completely unrelated manner like covid (remember when everyone had an opinion on that?)
By the title, I was concerned, thought maybe musk's doge and the likes were leaking data.
But it seems to be about Russia. It's a security researcher posting about politics. He may be out of his element and this would be equivalent to posts from any citizen.
Otoh, another possibility is that his insight from the cybersecurity aspect might reflect on a bigger trend.
I'm going with the former interpretation (out of his element) cyber is only one aspect of the US-Rus relations and a cybersecurity specialist might overweigh it. There's other concerns, including actual proxy wars going on. We don't know what the priorities are.
How is a (reputable) cybercrime journalist out of his element when it comes to how much cybercrime is committed by Russia? That sounds like it's exactly his topic of expertise.
Sure, there are other things that are happening in this conflict that may or may not be worse, but he didn't say there wasn't. All he said is that he believes that the cybersecurity stuff is already enough to prove malice. If you believe there are even worse things, then you should be even more worried!
I like Krebs. It's just that he is an expert in cyber security and not national defense or military.
My take from reading the more neutral guardian article is that the Americans don't see russia as a threat, probably because they have faith in their public and private cyber defense. And possibly also because they do similar cyber attacks, so they don't hold it against them.
It's good to see US Rus relations improving, I don't know what to tell ya.
>What they're shutting down is (a meaningful part of) "their public and private cyber defense
This is were you are in the wrong, the decision is on dropping counter-offenses, not on turning off defenses, whatever that means, are they disabling firewalls?
No, they're shutting down activities intended to gather intelligence on people who are actively attacking them, and/or disrupt those attacks.
If you want to think military, suppose somebody's been shelling my assets, so I return fire and try to knock out their guns. Is that defense or offense? I'm destroying their stuff, remember. Physically, there is no difference between their actions and mine. So should I just put up an earthen berm and forget about trying to disrupt the attack itself?
There isn't some absolute line between defense and offense.
"If you want to think military, suppose somebody's been shelling my assets, so I return fire and try to knock out their guns. Is that defense or offense"
I get that this is a metaphor, and what I say might be obvious. But there's several actual wars in which Russia is actively involved in right now. It is both tactless and confusing to talk about weapons as a metaphor for cybersecurity.
I know that we software devs like to think of cyber as a battlefield, we are attacked all the time, and yes there are real consequences.
But cyber attacks are not powder attacks. And there is no necessity that whatever happens in the cyber field occurs in the same directions and magnitudes as it does on the actual battlefields.
Would you be concerned if the state of russia considers mcdonalds not to be a threat to russia? Would you be concerned if they decided it was? Or would petty quarrels in the business domain have no bearing on the war domain?
"There isn't some absolute line between defense and offense."
Not an expert on this, but I'm pretty sure there is and there's geneva conventions and stuff, not comfortable at all with the implication, borders on incitation to violence.
I'm not american, but I do business with them. If the state says they have an embargo with Iran and Venezuela, I cut ties with those countries and not import stuff or work with people from those countries.
If the govmt says Russia is not a threat, then Russia is not a threat as far as I'm concerned. I will always hold the official line (barring extreme circumstances).
But I will not compromise trade relations with the US by taking any line different than the incumbent state. Not even if an eminence like krebs does. In the end he is a guy not in the military hierarchy, without official information, posting about national defense matters on social media for foreigners to see. And even if it is backed by similarly biased commenters on a forum ran by a dem aligned state. Who should I trust ad an outsider? It's an easy choice for me. I do try to stay away from your politics, but sometimes you gotta make a call.
Do with that as you will. I get that as a citizen you have more freedom to question your govmt, and I have to tread a fine line between not getting into the politics of a foreign country in public and doing it out of nature. But in my defense, you guys sure like getting into the politics of other states.
But man, let's hope I'm right, no? like it or not, neither of us have control over the line taken by your militaries.
Going on a limb here, but are republicans concerned about Russia atm? If this is a bipartisan matter I'd be more inclined to be weary. Otherwise it might be dems conflating internal political enemies for external nation enemies. Happens around elections, hopefully it stabilizes.
I personally would be much more concerned about the 5m visa things if I were you guys. I thought reps were anti inmigration! I guess it's ok when it's extracting the elite and wealthy from other countries.
P.s: will probably delet this later. Robots.txt deny
We are so getting cut out of intel sharing agreements by our allies over this. I mean, if they have a brain. Anyone with intel training 101 (that isn't Israel) will conclude that the US cannot be a trusted intel sharing partner anymore.
It's also worth noting that Cyber Command doesn't just do the high level infosec/botfarm stuff. Their most useful work for common Americans is fighting ransomware groups and coordinated scammers. Many of which originate from Russia!
Depending on how this order is implemented, it's not just a political thing, but an opening of the door to actual robbers and thieves.
Whether you agree with his assessment or not - it's clear that the president has too much power for one single person to hold. _Hopefully_ congress will work to change _that_, rather than fight this one person for four years and hope to hand all of this power to somebody they trust better next time.
One reason I can guess: measured response (or more) against adversarial actions. Like when someone blows up something of yours so you hit something of theirs. We know that many state agents - and others - are conducting offensive cyber operations against the US, and it may be that defence is not enough.
Indeed, now's a great time to sing kumbaya while Putin does whatever the fuck he wants -- not including invading multiple soverign nations -- and the Kremlin laughs their asses at our stupidity and crumbling institutions.
Sounds like a classic Chomsky-esque "I'm an expert in [niche topic] so therefore also on US foreign policy".
Somehow, this line of reasoning flies, despite its absurdity.
Krebs is an expert in cyber security, not diplomacy. On the latter, he's an armchair quarterback. This isn't some purely technical cyber security matter. It's obviously a "let's minimize poking Russia during trying to negotiate a peace deal" action.
Before flagging this post to oblivion consider the source: Brian Krebs [1] is highly reputable [2]. This is very newsworthy.
[1] https://krebsonsecurity.com/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Krebs
Didn't he dox his enemies and smear Ubiquiti's reputation by believing a criminal's version of events without verifying anything, resulting in a lawsuit, settlement and retraction?
It's hard for there to be a less authoritative figure on this stuff than Krebs.
Authority doesn't transfer across all domains. Although this is roughly adjacent to his domain, it's also not his domain.
Consider wikipedia's take on the subject of self published sources:
" Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work *in the relevant field* has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-p...
This is his domain. His domain is cyberattacks. This is 100% about cyberattacks. Sure some people are playing politics with it, but it is his domain more than the politicians.
Of thr people mentioned here, we have one of the world's foremost security experts, and a fox news host making a decision about cyber security. There is no evidence that the fox news host's experience is more relevant to this domain.
No it's not, it's about cyber attacks and diplomacy. He has no expertise in diplomacy.
I looked the fox news host, he is military.
That was just a low shot.
I get that cybersecurity is his domain. But this is about national defense and international politics no? He is taking a jab at a different (bigger) topic based on his domain.
In my experience when people do this, it doesn't play out, people get overconfident and explore the limits of their competence. But he might be on to something, who knows, time will tell. It's just not statistically likely for me
And in Krebs defense, the topics are interrelated, it's not like he just gave his opinion on a completely unrelated manner like covid (remember when everyone had an opinion on that?)
By the title, I was concerned, thought maybe musk's doge and the likes were leaking data.
But it seems to be about Russia. It's a security researcher posting about politics. He may be out of his element and this would be equivalent to posts from any citizen.
Otoh, another possibility is that his insight from the cybersecurity aspect might reflect on a bigger trend.
I'm going with the former interpretation (out of his element) cyber is only one aspect of the US-Rus relations and a cybersecurity specialist might overweigh it. There's other concerns, including actual proxy wars going on. We don't know what the priorities are.
How is a (reputable) cybercrime journalist out of his element when it comes to how much cybercrime is committed by Russia? That sounds like it's exactly his topic of expertise.
Sure, there are other things that are happening in this conflict that may or may not be worse, but he didn't say there wasn't. All he said is that he believes that the cybersecurity stuff is already enough to prove malice. If you believe there are even worse things, then you should be even more worried!
Here's more reporting on this if you don't like Mr. Krebs:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/trump-russia...
I like Krebs. It's just that he is an expert in cyber security and not national defense or military.
My take from reading the more neutral guardian article is that the Americans don't see russia as a threat, probably because they have faith in their public and private cyber defense. And possibly also because they do similar cyber attacks, so they don't hold it against them.
It's good to see US Rus relations improving, I don't know what to tell ya.
> And possibly also because they do similar cyber attacks, so they don't hold it against them.
"We spy on them so them spying on us is not a threat" does not make sense.
As far as I understand it, Mr. Krebs is _absolutely_ an expert on cyber sec.
> My take from reading the more neutral guardian article is that the Americans don't see russia as a threat,
... in spite of the many continuing active attacks coming out of Russia. Credibly with state support. As part of a longstanding pattern.
> probably because they have faith in their public and private cyber defense.
What they're shutting down is (a meaningful part of) "their public and private cyber defense".
> And possibly also because they do similar cyber attacks, so they don't hold it against them.
That is a shockingly stupid thing to say. "Don't hold it against them"? None of this is about the feels.
>What they're shutting down is (a meaningful part of) "their public and private cyber defense
This is were you are in the wrong, the decision is on dropping counter-offenses, not on turning off defenses, whatever that means, are they disabling firewalls?
No, they're shutting down activities intended to gather intelligence on people who are actively attacking them, and/or disrupt those attacks.
If you want to think military, suppose somebody's been shelling my assets, so I return fire and try to knock out their guns. Is that defense or offense? I'm destroying their stuff, remember. Physically, there is no difference between their actions and mine. So should I just put up an earthen berm and forget about trying to disrupt the attack itself?
There isn't some absolute line between defense and offense.
"If you want to think military, suppose somebody's been shelling my assets, so I return fire and try to knock out their guns. Is that defense or offense"
I get that this is a metaphor, and what I say might be obvious. But there's several actual wars in which Russia is actively involved in right now. It is both tactless and confusing to talk about weapons as a metaphor for cybersecurity.
I know that we software devs like to think of cyber as a battlefield, we are attacked all the time, and yes there are real consequences.
But cyber attacks are not powder attacks. And there is no necessity that whatever happens in the cyber field occurs in the same directions and magnitudes as it does on the actual battlefields.
Would you be concerned if the state of russia considers mcdonalds not to be a threat to russia? Would you be concerned if they decided it was? Or would petty quarrels in the business domain have no bearing on the war domain?
>No, they're shutting down activities intended to gather intelligence o
Also we don't know if they are, we know they said so. Which may be counterintelligence. If you were an enemy would you believe that? No
If I'm playing poker and my opponent tells me he has aces, I ignore it, what my opponent/enemy says gives me no information.
If my opponent says he has aces, and a friend tells him not to say that or whatever. I ignore that as well. He is not in the hand.
"There isn't some absolute line between defense and offense."
Not an expert on this, but I'm pretty sure there is and there's geneva conventions and stuff, not comfortable at all with the implication, borders on incitation to violence.
> Americans don't see russia as a threat
Seriously? Those Americans should remove their rose colored glasses. Even if you don't see Putin as a threat it is still important to spy on him.
Should have said America, not Americans. In the sense of the state. Which is distinct, even if democracy allows for a huge intersection.
Clearly there can be huge differences, especially in matters where transparency is not possible due to sensitive nature.
I'm not american, but I do business with them. If the state says they have an embargo with Iran and Venezuela, I cut ties with those countries and not import stuff or work with people from those countries.
If the govmt says Russia is not a threat, then Russia is not a threat as far as I'm concerned. I will always hold the official line (barring extreme circumstances).
But I will not compromise trade relations with the US by taking any line different than the incumbent state. Not even if an eminence like krebs does. In the end he is a guy not in the military hierarchy, without official information, posting about national defense matters on social media for foreigners to see. And even if it is backed by similarly biased commenters on a forum ran by a dem aligned state. Who should I trust ad an outsider? It's an easy choice for me. I do try to stay away from your politics, but sometimes you gotta make a call.
Do with that as you will. I get that as a citizen you have more freedom to question your govmt, and I have to tread a fine line between not getting into the politics of a foreign country in public and doing it out of nature. But in my defense, you guys sure like getting into the politics of other states.
But man, let's hope I'm right, no? like it or not, neither of us have control over the line taken by your militaries.
Going on a limb here, but are republicans concerned about Russia atm? If this is a bipartisan matter I'd be more inclined to be weary. Otherwise it might be dems conflating internal political enemies for external nation enemies. Happens around elections, hopefully it stabilizes.
I personally would be much more concerned about the 5m visa things if I were you guys. I thought reps were anti inmigration! I guess it's ok when it's extracting the elite and wealthy from other countries.
P.s: will probably delet this later. Robots.txt deny
This reply is archived
Where?
Brian further comments:
We are so getting cut out of intel sharing agreements by our allies over this. I mean, if they have a brain. Anyone with intel training 101 (that isn't Israel) will conclude that the US cannot be a trusted intel sharing partner anymore.
https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs/114083681956432034
It's also worth noting that Cyber Command doesn't just do the high level infosec/botfarm stuff. Their most useful work for common Americans is fighting ransomware groups and coordinated scammers. Many of which originate from Russia!
Depending on how this order is implemented, it's not just a political thing, but an opening of the door to actual robbers and thieves.
Whether you agree with his assessment or not - it's clear that the president has too much power for one single person to hold. _Hopefully_ congress will work to change _that_, rather than fight this one person for four years and hope to hand all of this power to somebody they trust better next time.
As a non-famous infosec person I am completely freaked out.
Perhaps because it impacts crim groups daddy Putin likes.
[flagged]
One example action is not enough evidence to be able to use "completely". More data required.
"Standing down from all planning" is one action the same way "launching all the nukes" is one action.
Taking a 10,000-foot view, I wonder why we should be conducting offensive actions against anyone…?
One reason I can guess: measured response (or more) against adversarial actions. Like when someone blows up something of yours so you hit something of theirs. We know that many state agents - and others - are conducting offensive cyber operations against the US, and it may be that defence is not enough.
Indeed, now's a great time to sing kumbaya while Putin does whatever the fuck he wants -- not including invading multiple soverign nations -- and the Kremlin laughs their asses at our stupidity and crumbling institutions.
Sounds like a classic Chomsky-esque "I'm an expert in [niche topic] so therefore also on US foreign policy".
Somehow, this line of reasoning flies, despite its absurdity.
Krebs is an expert in cyber security, not diplomacy. On the latter, he's an armchair quarterback. This isn't some purely technical cyber security matter. It's obviously a "let's minimize poking Russia during trying to negotiate a peace deal" action.
So no, he's not an expert "in this".