Arizona Department of Public Safety suffered another data expose. In the latest incident, a cyber-attack group reportedly compromised e-mail accounts of at least 11 employees. Attackers were also allegedly successful in extracting confidential police reports, names, contact details, social security numbers, login credentials, chats logs and voice mails. A cyber-attack group named ‘AntiSec’ has reportedly claimed responsibility for the latest attack. Lulz Sec had earlier urged other cyber-attack groups to carry on the Anti-Sec campaign aimed at targeting government, banking and financial institutions in a farewell message. The new group AntiSec appears to comprise of members of different attack groups including those of Lulz Sec. The attack group has reportedly claimed that their objective is broader and aimed at revealing information related to corrupt government and organizations. Some reports earlier suggested that Lulz Sec members have joined Anonymous.
The latest disclosure comes days after Lulz Sec made public several hundreds of documents such as private intelligence bulletins and training manuals as well as names, passwords, contact numbers, addresses and personal e-mail messages related to Arizona law enforcement officials. Security professionals of the department are investigating the latest incident. The new cyber-attack group also dumped data pertaining to entertainment content company, Viacom, Universal Music, as well as data extracted from Zimbabwe, Australian and Brazilian government sites. The attack group dumped online information related to Viacom’s network and login credentials of users of Universal Music.
The dumped data from Brazilian sites included government login credentials. Earlier, a Brazilian arm of Lulz Sec launched series of denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Brazilian websites, which included those of the federal government, presidency, taxation authority and oil company Petrobas. The information dumped from Australian websites includes e-mail addresses and login credentials of content editors of Mosman Council. The Council has confirmed the breach and described the attack as a SQL injection attack, which exploited vulnerabilities on a subsidiary website. However, the Council claims that passwords are encrypted and other data published by cyber-attackers is publically information available on the website, which attackers extracted by initiating a data dump. The council has changed the passwords after the security incident. The group has also published some data related to Zimbabwean government. Professionals may leverage online university degree programs to enhance their capabilities to combat ever evolving and sophisticated cyber threats.
Meanwhile, Anonymous launched a wave of cyber-attacks on several websites of Orlando. The targets include website of a local counter crime agency, a tourism website and website of a Mayor’s re-election campaign. The attacks are in protest against arrest of members of an antipoverty group ‘Orlando Food Not Bombs’. Counter crime agencies in Orlando have arrested several members of the group for violating a rule, which requires organizations to seek permits to provide food to groups of 25 or more people.
Regular scrutiny of websites is crucial to pre-empt cyber-attacks in detecting vulnerabilities, and initiating corrective action. Professionals qualified in computer science degree and IT degree programs may help organizations in assessing the information security practices and initiating necessary changes and improvements. Organizations must use latest encryption techniques to secure login credentials and sensitive information. Internet users must use strong and unique passwords for different websites. Mandatory e-learning and online degree programs may help employees to understanding and implementing information security practices.
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EC-Council
Website: http://www.eccuni.us
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Tel: 505-341-3228
EC-Council University is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico and offers Master of Security Science (MSS) degree to students from various backgrounds such as graduates, IT Professionals, and military students amongst several others. The MSS is offered as a 100% online degree program and allows EC-Council University to reach students from not only the United States, but from all around the world.
EC-Council is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce skills. It is the owner and developer of 16 security certifications, including Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (CHFI) and EC-Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA)/License Penetration Tester (LPT). Its certificate programs are offered in over 60 countries around the world.
EC-Council has trained over 80,000 individuals and certified more than 30,000 members, through more than 450 training partners globally. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies including the U.S. federal government via the Montgomery GI Bill, Department of Defense via DoD 8570.01-M, National Security Agency (NSA) and the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS). EC-Council also operates the global series of Hacker Halted security conferences.
