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| What You Look'n At? |
Still, she was uneasy.
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| What You Look'n At? |
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| Digging For Home |
Here is a real-world example of how individuals can call a service provider and pretend they are you in order to gain access to home, accounts and more.
In this case a person called the hosting service for a web application the processed credit card payments and pretended to be the owner. The service accepted the verbal request to change the account credentials so the imposter could access the source code and database.
How does this apply to your life?
All I would need to know are simple things about you. Your name, date of birth, zip code; things I could find out very easily.
The burden is on the service provider. Do they allow telephonic inquiries about your account? Can I add account users over the phone?
While this event happened to a company – the principal could be applied to any one of us.
We need to keep things in perspective here.
Some hacker got through to a US Department of Justice server that did nothing more than collect statistical data on the visitors to the site.
Information like what website referred them, their general geographical location, screen size; things that all websites collect so they can better understand their audience.
But because this was a US Department of Justice server the individuals who decide what the news is thought they would generate a few more readers if they clanged a few diner pots together and tapped into the fears of individuals who don’t understand computers and the Internet.
After all, what kind of damage is 1.7 GB of visitor information to a web site going to really provide someone? The average screen size or type of web browsers they had?
On the pretibial scale of 1 – 10 this information leak is a 1. But it makes for a provocative headline; don’t fall for it.
Anonymous hacks Bureau of Justice, leaks 1.7GB of data | ZDNet