Over the past few months we’ve seen a few high profile companies fall victim to Internet hackers. Now it looks like a third is having problems with Internet security, but this time it sabotaged itself.
If we take a trip back, August saw email giant Hotmail get infiltrated by hackers who got access to personal email accounts. It led to the Microsoft system shutting down for more than 2 hours. A group called Hackers Unite claimed responsibility, apparently they wanted to highlight flaws in Microsoft’s security, and post a few email account logins and passwords online for fun.
Almost a month later the Guardian came under attack. They estimated ‘ Up to half a million’ personal details about subscribers to the online job section were at risk. The job site gets around 10million unique subscribers every year, luckily the Guardian managed to stop the hack before it finished. Even so, the compromised info might have included the person’s name, email address, cover letter and CV, a good background history then!
Finally, unlike the other two Play.com managed to compromise its customer’s personal details all by itself. A massive computer glitch saw thousands of order confirmations get sent out to the wrong people. One Play.com customer received 80 emails for orders he hadn’t placed. Although names and addresses of customers were exposed, it doesn’t look like payment or credit card details were. Play.com are still trying to figure out what went wrong!
So just how much trust can we put in these online companies? Are these freak examples or are Internet sites too easy to infiltrate?
Loading ...
Most Commented