Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
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Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#2This is bad for anyone who recycles passwords. Most everyone I guess.
I’m sure they aren’t the only company to do so
I don’t think having an online account with your utility provider is required or smart. Good old postal mail is the way.
Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#3Great. Now all I need is someone to hack my account and pay my electricity bill for me.
Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#4Great. Now all I need is someone to hack my account and pay my electricity bill for me.
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Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#5This should be a criminal offense at this point.
Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#6This is bad for anyone who recycles passwords. Most everyone I guess. I’m sure they aren’t the only company to do so I don’t think having an online account with your utility provider is required or smart. Good old postal mail is the way.
Paying by checks through the mail is so annoying and difficult to stay on top of. I can't understand how you would prefer that approach in general -- is there some strategy here that I'm missing? Or is it that you open mail always immediately when you receive it, and minimize changes in address / vacations?
My strategy is to have a "disposable" password that you use for low-value purposes, like paying utilities. I assume this password is public knowledge, and accept that if somebody has it they can do such nefarious things as... pay my utilities bill.
Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#7The thing is probably running on decades-old code that makes common security practices (like storing only salted hashes of passwords) hard.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's code in there written in old-style mainframe COBOL or even (gasp) RPG.
Sigh.
Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#8Toronto Hydro isn't just "a major utility company"
It is entirely government owned and the largest electricity provider in the province.
Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#9There was this alleged Alberta AHS privacy breach:
https://old.reddit.com/r/alberta/comments/1c7lk3z/ahs_privac...
Don’t know if that went anywhere… anyone know?
Re: Major Toronto Utility Company Stores Customers' Passwords in Plain Text
#10This should be a criminal offense at this point.
Who are you prosecuting?