Android Forum Hacked

An online Android forum was recently hacked with over a million user accounts being compromised.  Members of that Android forum are being encouraged to immediately change their passwords following last week’s serious breach.

The type of information that was compromised from the Android user’s database, included, at a minimum, such sensitive items as unique IDs, user names, emails, hashed and ‘salted” passwords, and registration IP addresses. The hack is reportedly an email harvesting attempt.

Hacking occurrences are no longer rarities. They have become common place to the point where there is usually a daily news item about these events in media outlets everywhere.  Such unauthorized incidents result in user accounts, banks accounts, and confidential company data being stolen and compromised.

Yahoo.com, for example, was in the news last week as many of their accounts were hacked, with over 450,000 users affected. This clearly demonstrates the absolute necessity of organizations everywhere adopting stringent IT security measures, no matter what its size.

Most hackers try to leverage the weakest points in organizational networks, using tools such as phishing attacks. Eliminating compromised PCs or setting up permissions for users from wandering around the network looking for poorly protected data is easy when the network is segmented using internal firewalls. 

An easy way to identify potential locations for network barriers may be gleaned by looking at a typical corporate organizational chart. Networks should be segmented in much the same manner as organizations under different executives or departments. Finance and administration shouldn’t mix unimpeded with marketing or e-commerce applications. Research and development or engineering tasks should be separated from education and applications.

Not all organizations are fortunate enough to have a large enough budget to adequately support their IT function, Most organizations, sadly, don’t plan for such costs, nor do they even think about being hacked or losing vital company secrets.

The fact is that not everyone has an IT department to keep them out of trouble or fix the dreaded malware and computer viruses that lurk in the internet and computers everywhere. It’s time to get smart and protect your infrastructure no matter what the size of your organization. Trust me, hackers think that small businesses are ideal targets because they lack IT security and don’t have adequate systems in place to defend the destructive attacks of hackers.

Written by IT Support and IT Consulting Professionals at FedSolutions.  Thanks for stopping by!