Electronics

[Black Cat Back]

Heard this on the news. Here's the story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/technology/russian-gang-said-to-amass-more-than-a-billion-stolen-i...

No one is telling us what companies were hacked. I hate having to change all my passwords. Just be careful and don't open any spam or weird e-mails.

[IamMrsG]

"No one is telling us what companies were hacked."

There are at least 420,000 of them, involving 1.2 billion passwords and 500,000 Email addresses.

Time to get busy again changing passwords.

[glb613]

I changed all of my banking and shopping passwords this morning. I bought a new remote from a company and received a letter they were hacked. They didn't think it involved older than 2011. I can't remember when I purchased it. They are offering free identity protection for a year. It makes you wonder if the convenience of online shopping is worth the hassle.

[IamMrsG]

Password Strength Checker:

https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx?wt.mc_id=site_link

[depglass]

I'm starting to wonder if having a computer is worth the hassle. My bank is insisting we go to internet statements, or they will charge 2.25 per month for each account. They keep saying they've never had a problem. I think they have uninformed employees. Are they the only entity in the country that's never been hacked? I think not.

[Iambeezer]

YAWN.. this means absolutely nothing. You think your bank isn't going to see that money is being withdrawn from other countries and what not.. it's all security theater. Just like the TSA. This is nothing.

[gardenman]

You can have the strongest password in the world, but if the bad guys are able to access the computer on the other end that stores all of the passwords, then it doesn't matter. Your password could be "password" or "1Fed%^43lerCts,,,(" and you'd be equally exposed. A properly maintained system with adequate safeguards should (emphasis on "should") be safe no matter what. The malware creators though are very clever anymore and will try and find a way to slip their software pass the protection.

Many of these exploits we're seeing are to some extent state sponsored. A technologically sophisticated foreign state can find a way to use it's vast intelligence experience and expertise to get people inside the companies where they want to plant the software. We have foreign agents hidden in many parts of our government despite constant scrutiny and efforts to prevent it. If Russian or Chinese spies can penetrate our State or Defense Departments, then getting a software saboteur hired where they have the ability to access the information desired isn't terribly hard.

We're getting to a point where a foreign government could, conceivably anyway, bankrupt a country and destroy it's economy by taking over the right computer systems. The government knows this and is constantly looking for such exploits, but the next big war is likely to start over a few lines of malicious code used to create chaos in the country under attack.