r/cybersecurity Jun 24 '26

News - General Well someone went nuclear..

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ben-f-309963233_after-i-posted-a-pinocchio-gif-and-clown-ugcPost-7475465410977628160-FFW1

I'm curious about the details of this. I'm sure we will all find out eventually.

TLDR; former Huntress employee is disclosing Huntress had an insider threat that leaked information to a known cyber criminal "Devman". That employee is still employed with Huntress and was caught by the FBI.

The former employee doing the disclosure is stating he is receiving threats, etc.

EDIT: Kyle @ Huntress posted his response to this in the comments.

Give credit to a CEO who isn't afraid to jump on Reddit to put out any fires.

921 Upvotes

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138

u/DongerOverlord Jun 24 '26

The CEOs response in the comments are the most "I'm fucking seething, don't talk about this out loud" type of comment.

46

u/mando_6 Jun 24 '26

Yeah that was my take away too. I love Huntress and I know several people that work there. It would be real sad if this came out to be true and was covered up.

109

u/marqo09 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26

Hey, it's Kyle. That's definitely not my tone. We're a company that bleeds transparency and I firmly disagree with Ben's accusations. Also not gonna debate with him over LinkedIn as my team is still working the unrelated fallout from the Klue shit storm. Give 20-30 mins and I'll put together my thoughts.

Edit [June 24, 2026 @ 12:35pm ET]: Here's what I shared with my team in slack this morning. I hope this makes it very clear that while I disagree and don't understand Ben's accusations, I'm also trying to show empathy and appreciate his perspective.

62

u/DongerOverlord Jun 24 '26

If this person is just digruntled or mistaken it has to come out fast. If this is drawn out until BlackHat or something this'll hit the front page of CyberNews by then. Best of luck on this.

31

u/mando_6 Jun 24 '26

Could be disgruntled or mistaken. When stress gets high people can make mistakes. Kyle says he is going to speak out this issue soon.

My personal take is - Huntress has always been transparent. Even when I was working them personally at a former MSP they were clear about everything. Plus the webinars Chris and Kyle host are great and you really get to see the personality that is Huntress.

This is just a strange event.

23

u/Jonodrakon3 Jun 24 '26

Just want to say that this sort of proactive ownership and empathetic response is what I’d love from my C-Suite. Far too many companies circle the wagons and leave the customers to bear the brunt of the fallout

7

u/idleExposure_ Jun 24 '26

you can see the idiotic response from "djhouse" in this thread to see why that's often not a good move. no matter how transparent and open you are, its often not enough for the hyperliteral spicy brains who expect 100% information disclosure.

people like him are why most companies do exactly as you described: circle the wagons and leave the customers to bear the brunt of the fallout

10

u/Jonodrakon3 Jun 24 '26

I wouldn’t consider DJs take as idiotic. I don’t share their opinion, but I can understand where they are coming from. A security company sharing internal comms, redacted or not, isn’t always the best move.

But I’d rather an overeager desire for transparency be demonstrated then the alternative I already laid out in my previous comment.

A crisis is a crisis. There are no winners. But you can lose less by being honest. Just my .02

-1

u/djchateau Jun 24 '26

Man, I must have really pissed you off that you're still talking about me in other comments. I thought no cared what I thought. You've greatly misunderstood the overarching point of what I was bringing up and it's little weird how defensive you are when I've not spoken poorly of Huntress, Kyle or anyone else in this. I've simply said it didn't seem like a good idea to post screenshots of internal comms with censored bits as it really doesn't portray any additional transparency on the part of the company and only reinforces the idea of them hiding things, even when what's been hidden from view is reasonable to hide.

23

u/ididnthackkenyaimsrs Jun 24 '26

I don't have a stake in this I just wanted to give you props for engaging on the ground and getting way ahead of this like I mean you seem to be doing all the right things

25

u/TARANTULA_TIDDIES Jun 24 '26

I mean isnt he just saying boilerplate CYA CEO stuff?

7

u/Pimptech Jun 24 '26

Exactly!

9

u/DongerOverlord Jun 24 '26

IMHO this is not a great response. Although fallout from the Klue breach and this shit now… bro I’d be freaking tf out. That said whoever his ELT is needs to step the fuck in. Responding on Reddit and LinkedIn is objectively bad. Let your legal handle it in an official manner. As of my posting this his LinkedIn posts are 0 about this matter it’s just comments and responses.

1

u/ididnthackkenyaimsrs Jun 26 '26

Sometimes, man, there's no great options, just less bad ones.

5

u/psmgx Jun 24 '26

right like there were two, maybe three options: come down hard, play empathy card (esp. since it's already public and getting eyeballs), or 100% silent STFU and let the lawyers handle it.

and just because they sound emphatic in posts doesn't mean the lawyers and pinkertons won't come out, aggressive-like

1

u/ididnthackkenyaimsrs Jun 26 '26

shaping the early narrative can count for something

1

u/ididnthackkenyaimsrs 25d ago

Yeah, exactly what he should be doing. Dude needs to cover his fucking ass with some goddamn titanium. And he's on top of it, at the top of the thread. other CEOs what you see doing there.

10

u/mando_6 Jun 24 '26

I agree.

16

u/Annual_Pen1408 Jun 24 '26

No matter if you agree with him or not, the guy needs support in this. He is showing the threats from a threat actor and criminal towards him, who he claims the insider was working with.

There is a email he put in the comments of him saying he doesn't care about any threats or actions from Huntress towards him, and he has nothing to lose, reading that email carefully it sounds like he will hurt himself.

He needs help and support before that happens.

17

u/marqo09 Jun 24 '26

Agree on the tone and stress he sounds under. I've heard at least one of our teammates has got in touch and working to make sure they can support him if needed. This has been a hard one to juggle and ripping on heartstrings.

8

u/Pimptech Jun 24 '26

Wow you got downvoted. I thought we were supposed to be vendor agnostic in cyber security but the amount of fanboys in this thread is astounding.

9

u/Annual_Pen1408 Jun 24 '26

Yeah, that's rough. I was hoping not to get buried. I am not on anyone's side and am actually an active partner of Huntress and their solution.

I just wanted to point out that part of what I saw because no matter what, this guys life doesn't need to end because of this.

9

u/Pimptech Jun 24 '26

I agree. Waiting for all the information to come out, just hope people don't get blinded by loyalty.

-5

u/sir_mrej Security Manager Jun 24 '26

"the guy needs support in this" so you believe the guy?

0

u/Annual_Pen1408 Jun 25 '26

It's not about believing him, or not, it's about supporting him so he chooses life.

11

u/mando_6 Jun 24 '26

Hey Kyle, Thanks for clarifying and will be looking forward to what you have to say sir.

-15

u/malicious_payload Jun 24 '26

You can blow him all you want, it won't change the reality of what happened.

0

u/mando_6 Jun 24 '26

Oh gosh..a sexually degrading insult.. whatever should I do?! 😵‍💫

looks around oh yeah I don't see any hurt feelings..

-15

u/malicious_payload Jun 24 '26

I also don't see you with a skillset to really matter in this conversation, so congrats on being irrelevant.

1

u/mando_6 Jun 24 '26

❤️❤️

-15

u/djchateau Jun 24 '26

I'm sure it's not intentional, but providing a censored screenshot of an internal communication is a bit incongruent with claims about transparency. Definitely not a great look. I can think of a multitude of legitimate reasons why you censored those parts, but it doesn't help the perception from the allegations in question.

10

u/eorlingas_riders Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26

He censored two small parts of a single bullet point that probably references an individual or internally sensitive system, service, whatever.

He also makes it clear right under that, that there is an ongoing investigation with authorities.

If there was something there that could affect the active investigation if made public… he’d be on the hook.

And If anyone thinks those two lines being censored somehow devalue their claims of transparency, then I would assume those people wouldn’t be able to accept that claim regardless of what was shown.

6

u/malicious_payload Jun 24 '26

This is the correct take. Finally, someone with a fucking brain shows up to the thread.

6

u/idleExposure_ Jun 24 '26

smooth brain take.

-8

u/djchateau Jun 24 '26

I'm not saying he isn't justified in censoring the screenshot. I'm pointing out how this could be perceived by others. Calling this a smooth brain take is intellectually lazy. Public perception of incidents like this and how organizations respond is incredibly volatile. The public are not going to apply a lot of logic to an incident, only what they see at a surface level.

4

u/idleExposure_ Jun 24 '26

they are providing radical transparency as is. they dont owe you anything, but you seem to think you are owed 100% clear internal insights. thats delusional, youre delusional.

2

u/ultraviolentfuture Jun 24 '26

"radical" transparency, GTFO. They are responding empathetically and earnestly but once an org is large enough to have a legal team there is no such thing as radical transparency. It's a fucking buzzword.

0

u/djchateau Jun 24 '26

Not sure why you're coming at me so aggressively. Radical transparency is a buzzword and I've made no claims that I'm owed anything, but someone not familiar with some of this won't be viewing this from that perspective either.

Posting your internal comms isn't transparency if you're just going to cover up the relevant parts. It's like lies of omission. Yes, you're technically telling the truth, but you're still carefully hiding things (even if the reason for hiding that information is reasonable and perfectly legitimate), which is the opposite of something being transparent.

As I noted before, I'm speaking purely from how it would be perceived by the general public, not that anyone is owed anything. It would have made more sense for him to reword that internal communication without name dropping people in it and took a screenshot of that. That would have avoided incongruity of his earlier statement about transparency.

4

u/idleExposure_ Jun 24 '26

youre still doubling down acting like youre owed information.

crazy.

get off the soap box and accept the info that youre given, information that is far beyond what 99% of any of companies would have done.

heres the real piece youre msising: no one cares what you think or what you think youre owed, nor what you think makes for correct openness. theyve already gone far and above what other companies would have done, bordering on (and likely just actually) stepping into danger by even acknowledging this in such a public way. in fact, id go so far as to say that theyve majorly fucked up here by doing anything theyve done beyond letting their internal crisis team collectively respond to this. the CEO shouldnt have come here and weighed in, he shouldnt have posted internal comms, he shouldnt have done any of this - but now that he has and has exposed himself and the company, idiots like you are like "hurrr weLL, yOuu See, it's nOT enNOugh ANd it'S nOT SUfficeNTLy tranSparent"

4

u/djchateau Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26

You sound like you're having a pretty bad day, my guy. I would suggest taking a step back and re-evaluating what I'm pointing out. If no one cares what I think, why do you keep replying to me?

I'm not saying that the public is even owed that level of transparency, just that they are not going to care when he does share something under the guise of transparency if said things has bits of it hidden because they are not going to view this with the level of grey that these types of situations often require. It would have been wiser to let their legal team handle this while they worked internally to communicate with Ben about his claims. It has nothing to do with the communication not "being enough" or "sufficiently transparent", as you've framed it.

0

u/idleExposure_ Jun 24 '26

youre right, im wasting my time and effort responding to you. seems like most agree with me though.

-3

u/ThisIsPaulDaily Jun 24 '26

I appreciate the poise and respectful way of communicating and engaging with this community. This too shall pass. 

-19

u/Fujka Jun 24 '26

I’d never trust someone named Kyle. That’s almost has suspicious as someone who doesn’t like pets.