UPDATED 17:00 EDT / MARCH 24 2016

NEWS

Verizon data breached as hacker steals customer contact info

Verizon’s annual data breach investigation reports are excellent looks at how cyber attacks happen and how to defend against them, so one would expect Verizon’s own cyber defenses to be effective. But nothing is completely hacker-proof yet, as Verizon itself has learned.

Verizon Enterprise Solutions has been dealt a painful blow by a data breach, in which hackers stole and attempted to sell customer data. The thief took off with the contact information of approximately 1.5 million Verizon customers, and has put it up for sale on an underground cybercrime forum, asking for anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000, depending on the amount, as well as offering to sell information about Verizon’s security vulnerabilities.

According to KrebsOnSecurity, Verizon Enterprise has identified the security flaw that let hackers sneak in and steal customer contact information. However, there is no word on what exactly the vulnerability was, although if I may speculate, we might learn about that later in the 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report as a rather firsthand example.

Affected customers are being contacted, so they can respond accordingly; the contact information may make them prime targets for phishing or other similar attacks. Additionally, no customer proprietary network information or other data outside of contact information was accessible.

There is no such thing as a perfect defense against hackers; they’re always looking for new vulnerabilities to target, and eventually, they will find one. Even Verizon, with its constant research into data breach case studies, can still have vulnerabilities. Now it’s a matter of responding quickly and making sure the same attack can’t happen again.

Photo by JeepersMedia 


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