Data of 1,827 Vodafone customers stolen by hackers

Vodafone in the United Kingdom has revealed the fact that information of its 1,827 customers were stolen. The information included the names, bank account numbers, bank sort codes and mobile numbers of these customers. However, despite the revelation, Vodafone has refused to accept the fact that its own systems were compromised and the data was stolen. Instead it claims that the information of these 1827 customers was leaked from an “external” source.

Vodafone has not clarified what does it mean by an external source or which is this source. It also did not clarify how this external source got the information that it leaked. It seems that the information must have been leaked by someone inside Vodafone to this external source which was then released by it. There does not seem to be any other plausible explanation as to how can an external source got hold of information stored wit Vodafone.

Vodafone in Australia has recently been accused of monitoring the call and SMS details of a reporter in an unauthorised manner. Even in that instance the company pinned the blame on one of its staff rather than taking the responsibility on itself for the incident. It seems that even in this hacking instance of over 1800 customers’ data being stolen, Vodafone is again trying to find someone else to blame.

After the TalkTalk incident in the UK where thousands of customers had their banking details compromised and over 1.2 million had their name and email ids leaked, Vodafone is the next instance that has shocked the industry and the consumers. It seems even companies as large as Vodafone and TalkTalk are complacent when it comes to securing the information of their customers and the access to these customer details can be gained by anyone without proper authorisation.

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by Malik korrich ~ dimanche 1 novembre 2015 0 commentaires

Emails of CIA Director posted online by WikiLeaks

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has in its latest exploits posted personal details of the CIA Director John Brennan. The personal details include Brennan’s residential address, social security number of his wife, his personal health history and other sensitive and personal information. The information was leaked after the emails of Brennan were hacked.

The hack was done by an American hacker who hacked into the accounts of John Brennan and Jen Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The unknown hacker hacked information includes details of Brennan even before he was a part of the current Barrack Obama administration. Among the official information accessed from the emails were Brennan’s employment application form and drafts of intelligence reports.

The hacked emails belonged to the personal email account of Brennan and although they included information about intelligence reports, projects and details of his company “The Analysis Corp.”, not much of the leaked information has anything sensitive or top secret. The employment form found in the hacked emails belonged to the application for the National Security Position. It is a lengthy form with 48 pages and was filled by Brennan in November 2008, almost 4 years before he was actually appointed as the CIA Director.

This act by WikiLeaks has been termed as criminal by the CIA. They have strongly opposed this action and the CIA along with the FBI are investigating the matter. WikiLeaks is popular after it posted a large volume of governmental documents that were leaked by Edward Snowden. Snowden has since feared for his life and is living in a temporary asylum in Russia from 2012.

Several government officials in the US have been targeted by hackers and it seems that not even the Director of CIA is immune to such attacks!

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by Malik korrich ~ jeudi 22 octobre 2015 0 commentaires