Frontline Sentinel: Apple, Amazon Announce Changes After Hacking of Wired Reporter Aug 11, 2012 – Matthew Pascucci
Most of us take the things we have for granted until we lose
them. That goes for jobs, friends, our youth and every other thing we hold
dear. So, how does it feel when you really do lose everything?
Ask Mat Honan.
Honan, a writer for the tech magazine Wired, is the type of guy who keeps his whole life in “the
cloud” – a digital storage space that has no real physical
location and is maintained by a collection of unknowable network systems.
Honan’s cloud of choice was the iCloud, a storage service offered by
Apple, and in the span of less than an hourthe bulk of his digital existence was stolen and then erased by a
hacker.
The hacker,
who agreed to share his methodwith Honan in
exchange for the writer’s promise not to press charges, demonstrated
how he used gaps in Amazon and Apple security protocols to harvest enough
data to break into Honan’s iCloud account. The hack was shockingly
non-technical and only involved a couple calls to set up new passwords to get
the required data.
Now both Amazon and Apple have announced they are revamping
their security procedures and the new policies that are sure to come will
make password resets and account access much more difficult for hackers. Of
course, that means those same tasks will become harder for consumers as well
andApple users have already noticed difficultywith accessing their various accounts.
The ramifications of this are not yet clear, but it is safe
to assume that more problems are on the horizon as the security of digital
cloud storage services – which
many argue will become the norm in the near future– will infringe upon the convenience and privacy of
users.
There are several ways to help safeguard against a total
loss of data.Backing up information on a personal hard
drive, privatizing Web registration data and
creating a firewall between sensitive accounts are all options people can use
to increase online protection. Honan’s misfortune should be a reminder
to all that corporate security measures should be thought of as a secondary
measure of defense against the failure of our own personal efforts to stay
safe online.
{Guest Author] James Madeiros is a staff writer
forCriminal Justice Degree
Schools, a career resource that provides
information on education options for earning a cybersecurity degree.
Matthew Pascucci is a freelance writer and
information security practitioner. You can follow him at @matthewpascucci or
his blog atwww.Frontlinesentinal.com.
