Pour yourself a glass of bourbon, because here we go again with the top story that proves the security industry loves a good backstage pass more than actually fixing anything. The headline this time is Rey, the public face of the Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters, finally admitting who he is after KrebsOnSecurity tracked him down. It’s a tellable tale: a hacker group, a public persona, a splashy interview, and a big reminder that in 2025 the only thing easier than breaking in is watching a CISO PR machine pretend it’s a security plan.
What this story actually tells us
The article centers on Rey’s real-life identity and the interview that followed. It’s not a blueprint for defense, it’s a human interest piece about the person behind the data dumps and extortion letters. And yes, that matters, because it exposes the old idea that “we can out-think criminals with fancy tools” as a hollow performance. The group allegedly extorted dozens of major corporations this year, and the piece underscores how public-facing personas can be as much branding as blueprint—much like a vendor whitepaper that sounds impressive until you realize the controls haven’t moved an inch.
In other words, this story is a mirror for the security industry’s perpetual appetite for scandal, not a guide to resilience. It reads like a reminder that you can reveal the operator’s name all you want, but the real adversary is a sprawling ecosystem of weak credentials, sloppy access management, and supply chain friction that no press release cures. And yes, KrebsOnSecurity did the legwork that so many vendors pretend to do with “threat intelligence” dashboards—only to show how little practical impact that intelligence actually has on day-to-day risk.
Why this stings vendors, CISOs, and IT culture
Vendor hype loves a good narrative arc: public shaming, dramatic interviews, and a scoreboard of fresh headlines to sell you the next badge, SSO, or AI agent promise. Meanwhile, CISOs chase metrics that look impressive in a boardroom slide deck but rarely translate into fewer incidents, faster containment, or fewer secrets sitting in code formatting platforms and misconfigured vaults. This Rey story isn’t a victory lap for defense; it’s a cautionary tale about how the industry markets fear while tolerating systemic gaps. The more pages you fill with “we’ve traced the operator” patter, the more you gloss over the basic truth: most breaches happen because someone clicked something they shouldn’t have and because credentials were left sitting in places they shouldn’t be.
So yes, raise a glass of scotch or rum to the drama if you must, but keep the real takeaway in mind: identity exposure is not victory. It’s a reminder that the security program’s real work is not glamorous headlines, but reducing attack surface, enforcing least privilege, rotating secrets, and actually closing the gaps that criminals exploit every week. Vendors will keep selling fear and features; you should demand outcomes and accountability instead.
Read the original
For the full skewering of the story and the interview details, see KrebsOnSecurity: Meet Rey the Admin of Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters.
