What's more, the stolen data was left unprotected and available to anyone on the web (i.e., no access restrictions, no encryption whatsoever).
“The fact that the information was wide open indicates that whoever was behind this had no security background, was not a sophisticated hacker,” Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO, Finjan, told SCMagazineUS on Tuesday. “He was probably using a malware toolkit he purchased.”
According to a report from Finjan, the server was located in Malaysia, but contained data from all around the world, including North America, Europe and Asia. The server was up only three weeks, but was able to collect 1.4 GB of data. The compromised data was detected using active real-time code inspection technology while diagnosing a user's web traffic.
The Finjan report, available here, contains examples of compromised data such as bank customer data, email communications and patient data.
Ben-Itzhak told SCMagazineUS.com that the server was shut down two days after the find was reported. However, the criminal behind it has not been found. The server contained 5,388 unique log files traced back to 5,878 distinct IP addresses.
Alarming too was that some of the data was HIPAA related. The exposure of the HIPAA data to criminal elements compromises not only the patient, but also the medical institution/health care provider involved, as well as employees of the institution.
Massive hacker server discovered
By
Chuck Miller
on May 7, 2008 10:15AM
Security researchers recently found a server being used to harvest private information consisting of stolen data from 40 international businesses, as well as health-related information on patients worldwide.
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