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German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

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Re: German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

#11

Post by mildtrepidation »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #8
3rd3 wrote: post #3

I wonder why internet companies don’t have contingency plans in place for data theft. I would be glad to be able to check whether my account is affected and to receive an email with instructions immediately. Instead it’s always a big surprise and it takes weeks until details are published…

I wonder why internet companies don't just do the right thing and use good hashes (or better methods like SRP, but that requires client updates) so that none of this would even mater

Because they don't start out with well-designed systems (that costs money), and they don't want to upgrade their systems to be good (that costs money).

It's very simple, but it's only obvious after you've seen it happen too many times.

Re: German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

#12

Post by eik3_de »

jboynyc wrote: post #10
sentenza wrote: post #4

You non-Germans don't know how mind-boggeling insane this whole story is. There is a governmental agency, the BSI, whose job is to be on top of everything regarding security in information systems. They tell us that millions of email accounts are compromised. What they don't tell us is _which_ accounts are compromised or even what service provider these accounts are with. Maybe the key information here is that the in…

I concur. Another result of informing the public in this manner is that reporting on the leak is murky and alarmist. Yesterday I watched the Tagesschau , a highly-regarded public TV news program, and their report on this story was so short on information that all it could do -- whether consciously or not -- was to vaguely convey how dangerous cyberspace is. They even had the visuals of numbers flying through space fo…

wait, no shot of a blinking switch port led?

Re: German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

#13

Post by eik3_de »

sentenza wrote: post #4

You non-Germans don't know how mind-boggeling insane this whole story is. There is a governmental agency, the BSI, whose job is to be on top of everything regarding security in information systems. They tell us that millions of email accounts are compromised. What they don't tell us is _which_ accounts are compromised or even what service provider these accounts are with. Maybe the key information here is that the in…

I saw a news show on ZDF yesterday and they actually recommended using an email provider that has 2 factor auth with "some code on you mobile". I guess no non-geek understood it but I was still shocked. Usually they just say you should have different passwords for different sites.

Re: German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

#14

Post by kryptiskt »

sibbl wrote: post #9
sentenza wrote: post #4

You non-Germans don't know how mind-boggeling insane this whole story is. There is a governmental agency, the BSI, whose job is to be on top of everything regarding security in information systems. They tell us that millions of email accounts are compromised. What they don't tell us is _which_ accounts are compromised or even what service provider these accounts are with. Maybe the key information here is that the in…

What are you complaining about? There was a leak some months ago and the BSI kept the information about the leak secret until they had set up a system to inform people. Lots of people complained that they didn't publish the information earlier. Now they are doing, what I think is the correct way. Now they have time to discuss how to tell the people whose data has leaked which they surely will do.

Too bad cybercriminals aren't awaiting the orderly notification of people before they use the information to do harm. The leak certainly isn't secret to the perpetrators.

Re: German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

#15

Post by viraptor »

eik3_de wrote: post #13
sentenza wrote: post #4

You non-Germans don't know how mind-boggeling insane this whole story is. There is a governmental agency, the BSI, whose job is to be on top of everything regarding security in information systems. They tell us that millions of email accounts are compromised. What they don't tell us is _which_ accounts are compromised or even what service provider these accounts are with. Maybe the key information here is that the in…

I saw a news show on ZDF yesterday and they actually recommended using an email provider that has 2 factor auth with "some code on you mobile". I guess no non-geek understood it but I was still shocked. Usually they just say you should have different passwords for different sites.

Germany is quite good it seems. I don't really understand where it comes from, but the last time I randomly turned on the TV in Berlin, there was an educational program about PGP. At around 20:30, on a standard TV channel, one of the first ones on the list at the hotel, so it wasn't something obscure either. It seemed to describe the whole idea of asymmetric encryption too (inferred from the animated presentation).

I was really impressed.

Re: German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

#16

Post by raverbashing »

viraptor wrote: post #15
eik3_de wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a news show on ZDF yesterday and they actually recommended using an email provider that has 2 factor auth with "some code on you mobile". I guess no non-geek understood it but I was still shocked. Usually they just say you should have different passwords for different sites.

Germany is quite good it seems. I don't really understand where it comes from, but the last time I randomly turned on the TV in Berlin, there was an educational program about PGP. At around 20:30, on a standard TV channel, one of the first ones on the list at the hotel, so it wasn't something obscure either. It seemed to describe the whole idea of asymmetric encryption too (inferred from the animated presentation). I…

Well, the part of the population that cares about information security is very well informed

But the rest seems to live in a luddite world. If you had watched TV more you would have seen that there are a lot of ads for: web games, PayPal and other websites trying to drag the average consumer into, you know, using the stuff.

Paying with a Debit Card is rare in Berlin, Credit Cards are barely non-existent (but they have some other ways of paying stuff online and on stores)

Security of bank accounts is usually done through a list of one-use code numbers (still, they - and several other countries - have payee initiated money transfers between accounts/banks, something that is rare in US/Canada)

Re: German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

#18

Post by [deleted] »

sentenza wrote: post #4

You non-Germans don't know how mind-boggeling insane this whole story is. There is a governmental agency, the BSI, whose job is to be on top of everything regarding security in information systems. They tell us that millions of email accounts are compromised. What they don't tell us is _which_ accounts are compromised or even what service provider these accounts are with. Maybe the key information here is that the in…

[deleted]

Re: German officials confirm 18 million emails and passwords stolen

#19

Post by cJ0th »

viraptor wrote: post #15
eik3_de wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a news show on ZDF yesterday and they actually recommended using an email provider that has 2 factor auth with "some code on you mobile". I guess no non-geek understood it but I was still shocked. Usually they just say you should have different passwords for different sites.

Germany is quite good it seems. I don't really understand where it comes from, but the last time I randomly turned on the TV in Berlin, there was an educational program about PGP. At around 20:30, on a standard TV channel, one of the first ones on the list at the hotel, so it wasn't something obscure either. It seemed to describe the whole idea of asymmetric encryption too (inferred from the animated presentation). I…

You must have caught a lucky moment. Because of the current incident (passwords stored in plaintext were stolen!), spiegel online[0] wrote an article telling their readers they'd be better off if they had chosen stronger passwords.

> 18 Millionen gestohlene Passwörter und Logins hat die Staatsanwaltschaft Verden entdeckt. Mit ein paar Tricks kann man sich zumindest vor dem Schlimmsten schützen, wenn Datendiebe und Hacker zuschlagen.

translates to:

> 18 million stolen passwords and logins were found by the Staatsanwaltschaft (prosecution) of Verden. With a few tricks [i.e. a strong password] you can protect yourself from the worst when data thiefs and hackers attack.

[0] http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/passwort-emails-und-login...

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