by Josh Arrington
What at deal–Free backdoors with every product! Bank of America is stung by an insider! Plus, cyber crime hits the small screen. These are just a few of the headlines we’re focused on for this week’s IT Security Rewind. Let’s dig into the details:
Wireless router, backdoor included: ThreatPost covers an “oops” by Allied Telesis, a Japan-based maker of switches, routers and other networking devices that posted an alleged internal customer support document online that was written to answer questions like “‘How do I obtain a backdoor password for my Allied Telesis device?’” and includes instructions on accessing a “built in Backdoor function” on any Allied Telesis device. Why is this a big deal? ThreatPost says it best: Backdoor administrative accounts and functions are a dirty secret of the hardware industry. Based on the headlines we’ve seen, this dirty little secret is hacker’s pay dirt.
Cost of a data breach = $10 million: IDG News Service has been tracking the Bank of America breach that was first reported by the Los Angeles Times this week. According to reports, a Bank of America insider who sold customer data to criminals cost the bank at least $10 million (US) in losses. While only minimal details of the breach are being released by law enforcement at this time, the efforts to leverage customers’ personal information has been successful in many cases, with one victim reporting that his checking accounts had been rapidly drained of more than $20,000.
Cybercrime – the movie: Got some down time this weekend? Hopefully you had your DVR set for CNBC’s documentary “Code Wars: America’s Cyber Threat,” which originally aired on May 26. The show investigated the prevalence of global cyber threats, with the correspondent Melissa Lee conducting multiple interviews including traveling to profile the leader of a group of Chinese hackers and visit Estonia, a nation whose banking system was taken down for days by hackers. The New York Daily News says, “”Code Wars” aims to scare us about bad guys with computers the same way “Jaws” aimed to scare us about large angry fish.” Missed it? The program will run again on Sunday, May 29 at 10 p.m. ET.
What other security headlines do you think are worth highlighting?
