Mantra Of Security !!!: January 2013

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Hacker floods Dubai 999 service !!!

Dubai Police today warned the public against clicking on an infected Web link, which was triggering 999 calls and jamming the emergency line, 7Days reported.

The announcement, made through Twitter appealed to online visitors not to click the link that was claiming to lead to a close-up picture of the sun, and condemned the irresponsible act as having endangered lives. It is not clear from the warning how the infected link was propagated.

"We have received numerous calls because of this link," Brigadier Omar Al Shamsi, director of Dubai Police command and control, told Arabic daily Al Bayan.

"They are really very disturbing and annoying as they put great pressure on the emergency operator. It is not the first time such irresponsible actions [have been] taken by irresponsible persons. Previously, we have succeeded in identifying those persons and presented them to court on charges of disturbing authorities."

Al Shamsi was referring to the October 2012 case of an Emirati man who sent a link through the Blackberry network that he claimed was UAE vocalist Shamma Hamdan's phone number. The number was linked to the emergency 999 service and inundated the line with calls from Shamma fans before police publicised the problem, again through Twitter.

Source: http://www.itp.net/592050-hacker-floods-dubai-999-service?tab=article#.UQphRPJBCQA

Friday, January 4, 2013

Nationwide Insurance data breach affects 1.1 million people

Ben Weitzenkorn , TechNewsDaily

NBC News

Nationwide has notified customers and those who contacted the insurance company for information about the security breach.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company fell victim to hackers in October, affecting an estimated 1.1 million individuals, including non-customers who had sought insurance quotations, the company told customers Thursday.
Nationwide's subsidiary Allied Insurance was also affected.
Thieves made off with names and corresponding Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers and birth dates after thieves broke into the company network.

Nationwide reported the incident to authorities immediately, but did not inform consumers until now.
"We are not aware of any misuse of consumers' information at this time," the company said in a statement.
A patchwork of news reports alluded to the scope of the breach, with a combined 120,000 individuals known to be affected across Iowa, Florida and Ohio, Kaspersky's Threatpost blog reported. It wasn't until this week that the full extent of the breach became known.
Nationwide is in the process of informing its affected customers, but nonclients who sought quotes should be extra vigilant in monitoring their accounts' activity.
Nationwide said it would supply victims with one year of credit monitoring services and up to $1 million for identity theft protection. It also posted a FAQ page to answer customers' questions.