Mitnick: It's a new breed of hackers

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perfect example

A perfect example of ignorance in these matters --- A while ago, I was going to use an online pharmacy to order the prescriptions needed by my family. I decided to check security on this rather large, very popular website (it shall be unnamed, though people using the site really should know). The web server was running on a Solaris 9 box, using Apache, with the daemon running as root. It was so insecure it took a matter of 5 minutes or so to be ssh'ed into the machine under a root account, at which time there was complete access to the users names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card information, and order histort (all this contained in a mySQL Database on the local server). I notified the company of the lack of security, and gave information on how to secure the site. I never used any of the information that was presented, and I immediately notified the company of the serious security issues and what they can do to fix the problems they had. They replied by threatening to arrest me and a myriad other legal actions. They shall remain nameless, especially since even almost a year later, the same security holes exist. They not only threatened me, but they ignored my very helpful advice. There are litterly thousands of customers on this site that have no idea of how this ignorance compromises their personal information. I have never offered this type of advise again, but I do feel sorry for the users of insecure sites like these that could be harmed.

Posted by: sabayer   Posted on: 11/04/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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