hackers

As you may have heard by now, The Onion recently became the latest in a string of large news organizations to be attacked and have their Twitter hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. They were able to regain control fairly quickly, but in a surprising twist, they also decided to publish a blog post detailing how their security was breached.[read more]

The world is in great need of hackers. The United States and its allies are pouring money into computer defense, Western governments spending a total of $35.5 billion on telecommunications and cyber security in 2010. Entry level "ethical hackers" can earn between $50,000 and $100,000 each year.[read more]

Evernote is just the latest in a series of high-profile security breaches or attempts. We have talked many times about the importance of using secure passwords and implementing a common-sense approach to what information you store on the cloud.[read more]

Speed is essential in tackling Twitter hijacking. eModeration's useful guide will help you defend your company Twitter account against hackers.[read more]

Things got out of hand for Burger King's Twitter account last week when hackers broke into the official Burger King Twitter account. They turned it into a doppelganger of McDonald's Twitter page and sent out offensive tweets. But in the end, is this a win or a loss for Burger King?[read more]

Many people will tell you that Burger King's Twitter account being hacked is negative for their brand, but let's look at the numbers. The kind of press and attention they will receive as a result of the hack would have required nearly a $1,000,000 campaign investment.[read more]

MTV, you know how to run successful social media campaigns, and have done so in the past. So why would you resort to something like a fake hacker?[read more]

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Somebody should tell Burger King and Jeep the Chinese word for crisis is “danger” and “opportunity.” Done right, people could be talking about what these companies did after their twitter accounts were hacked for years to come.[read more]

Over the last couple of years we have seen plenty of examples of how social media disasters have left companies on their knees begging for forgiveness. However yesterday saw one that may have left its mark in a slightly better way.[read more]

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@BurgerKing was hacked. What can brands learn from the incident and the response?[read more]

Using no more processing power than what’s found inside a basic smartphone, it is now possible to generate all possible 8-letter passwords in a few hours. It’s shocking how many companies still rely on nothing more than username and password to secure sensitive data.[read more]

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How well do you know your social network? With the way our online identities are increasingly linked, all it takes is one less-than-discriminating friend in your circle for a hacker to gain access to and destroy your online life.[read more]

“This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident,” stated Bob Lord, Twitter director of information security. “The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked.”[read more]

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Around 250,000 people have had their passwords reset after 'sophisticated' hackers broke into Twitter's database and may have stolen emails and encrypted passwords. Here's a guide on what you need to know.[read more]

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It has started to become a norm to hire skilled hackers to monitor the company’s security system – for example, BT Managed Security Solutions enable their customers to protect their system by offering the service of hackers find out if there are any issues with it. Similarly, Facebook is taking help from white-hat hackers to look after its security systems – stating categorically the ethical standards that need to be followed.[read more]

A good friend of mine recently got his WordPress blog hacked. It was quite a malicious attack that could have an impact on his search ranking and, of course, his momentum in traffic. It's one of the reasons why I advice large companies to utilize a corporate blogging platform like Compendium — where there's a monitoring team...[read more]

James Lee, senior VP and chief public affairs officer at ChoicePoint, spoke at the PRSA International Conference today about ChoicePoint's experience with the theft of 145,000 customer records in 2005. It was an interesting study in crisis management, but what stuck me the most was comments by him and the audience about their lousy...[read more]