https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/12/happy-14th-birthday-krebsonsecurity/ Advertisement [17] Advertisement [18] Krebs on Security Skip to content * Home * About the Author * Advertising/Speaking Happy 14th Birthday, KrebsOnSecurity! December 29, 2023 12 Comments KrebsOnSecurity celebrates its 14th year of existence today! I promised myself this post wouldn't devolve into yet another Cybersecurity Year in Review. Nor do I wish to hold forth about whatever cyber horrors may await us in 2024. But I do want to thank you all for your continued readership, encouragement and support, without which I could not do what I do. [fourteen] As of this birthday, I've officially been an independent investigative journalist for longer than I was a reporter for The Washington Post (1995-2009). Of course, not if you count the many years I worked as a paperboy schlepping The Washington Post to dozens of homes in Springfield, Va. (as a young teen, I inherited a largish paper route handed down from my elder siblings). True story: At the time I was hired as a lowly copy aide by The Washington Post, all new hires -- everyone from the mailroom and janitors on up to the executives -- were invited to a formal dinner in the Executive Suite with the publisher Don Graham. On the evening of my new hires dinner, I was feeling underdressed, undershowered and out of place. After wolfing down some food, I tried to slink away to the elevator with another copy aide, but was pulled aside by the guy who hired me. "Hey Brian, not so fast! Come over and meet Don!" I was 23 years old, and I had no clue what to say except to tell him that paper route story, and that I'd already been working for him for half my life. Mr. Graham laughed and told me that was the best thing he'd heard all day. Which of course made my week, and made me feel more at ease among the suits. I remain grateful to WaPo for instilling many skills, such as how to distill technobabble into plain English for a general audience. And how to make people the focus of highly technical stories. Because people -- and their eternal struggles -- are imminently relatable, regardless of whether one has a full grasp of the technical details. Words fail me when trying to describe how grateful I am that this whole independent reporter thing still works, financially and otherwise. I mostly just keep my head down researching stuff and sharing what I find, and somehow loads of people keep coming back to the site. As I like to say, I hope they let me keep doing this, because I'm certainly unqualified to do much else! Another milestone of sorts: We've now amassed more than 52,000 subscribers to our email newsletter, which is a fancy term for a plain text email that goes out immediately whenever a new story is published here. Subscribing is free, we never share anyone's email address, and we don't send emails other than new story notifications (2-3 per week). A friendly reminder that while you may see ads (or spaces where ads otherwise would be) at the top of this website, all two-dozen or so ad creatives we run are vetted by me and served in-house. Nor does this website host any third-party content. If you regularly browse the web with an ad blocker turned on, please consider adding an exception for KrebsOnSecurity.com. Our advertising partners are how we keep the lights on over here. And in case you missed any of them, here are some of the most-read stories published by KrebsOnSecurity in 2023. Happy 2024 everyone! Ten Years Later, New Clues in the Target Breach It's Still Easy for Anyone to Become You at Experian Experts Fear Crooks are Cracking Keys Stolen in LastPass Breach Why is .US Being Used to Phish So Many of US? Few Fortune 100 Firms List Security Pros in Their Executive Ranks Who's Behind the Domain Networks Snail Mail Scam? Phishing Domains Tanked After Meta Sued Freenom Many Public Salesforce Sites are Leaking Private Data Hackers Claim They Breached T-Mobile More Than 100 Times in 2022 Identity Thieves Bypassed Experian Security to View Credit Reports This entry was posted on Friday 29th of December 2023 05:16 PM Other Post navigation - BlackCat Ransomware Raises Ante After FBI Disruption 12 thoughts on "Happy 14th Birthday, KrebsOnSecurity!" 1. Tomas Petru December 29, 2023 Big congrats! Running a news organization is a tough job, so your ability to do it with profit for 14 years is outstanding. Respect Tomas Reply - 2. James senger December 29, 2023 Always enjoy your articles and some of the best out there. Happy Birthday. Well done. James Reply - 3. Robert Bonner December 29, 2023 Happy birthday. Krebs on Security is a bright spot in my Inbox. I marvel at how you are able to maneuver around on the dark web and come up with all the information and contacts you relate in your reporting. I'm sur my computer would explode if I ventured off into some of the places you visit. Reply - 4. JamesD December 29, 2023 Happy Birthday and New Years Brian. Thank you for all the hard work you do to bring us these articles. Reply - 5. Maureen MacGregor December 29, 2023 Making the world safer and better for 14 years - thank you Brian! Reply - 6. th3t1ck December 29, 2023 Happy Birthday Brian. I have been following you for many years throughout my network and security career. I've learned alot from you and still continue to. Keep up the good fight brother. :^) Reply - 7. Jenny December 29, 2023 Congratulations Brian, thanks for all you do, few have the courage (and talent) to do what you do. Reply - 8. James V Dunleavy December 29, 2023 Met you back in 2010(?) in Portsmouth, NH. Followed you since. I appreciate your dedication. Your enthusiasm for cyber things is infectious. Keep up the good work! And, Happy Birthday! Reply - 9. Ellie December 29, 2023 Happy Birthday Brian - I appreciate your work! Reply - 10. Steve Reger December 29, 2023 Appreciate the unique and important work you do. May a new year bring more justice. Reply - 11. Paul B. Guy December 29, 2023 Congratulations Brian! I'm a (very) long-time reader from Australia. Long may you continue enlightening us about all things that (should) scare us on the Internet. Also, based on what you said in this post about ads being vetted by you and served in-house, I have turned off my ad blocker. May your coffers run over with the additional revenue Reply - 12. Clifford Rebello December 29, 2023 Congratulations Brian! Keep up the great work! Cliff Reply - Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. 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