2012: Looking back at the major hacks, leaks and data breaches
Summary: ZDNet looks back at the year, on a month-by-month basis, at some of the most publicized hacks, leaks and data breaches of 2012.
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Formspring password breach, mass password reset follows
Formspring was also next on the list of companies to be attacked and passwords stolen. As soon as the firm realized there had been a security breach, Formspring sent out an email to those affected asking them to change their password.
Around 420,000 password hashes were posted to a security forum, but username and other data were not submitted, making it almost impossible to do anything with. However, the form-based question firm used the SHA-256 algorithm to secure its user's accounts and passwords were hashed with random salts. Formspring now uses bcrypt in order to secure accounts even further.
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Talkback
And yet, we still tout the "security" of "the cloud"
Truth be known - if you're a cloud provider, you've probably been hacked. And you might not even know it.
Yet, here we are, in an age where we claim cloud computing is "more secure."
It's not more secure. In fact, the hacks against the cloud are far more scary and the stolen information far more important than anything we've seen against desktop PCs.
Hack one person? You get one credit card number. Hack a cloud provider? You get EVERYBODY's credit card number.
Frankly, it's time to re-think "the cloud" and how to provide security. Maybe "the cloud" isn't such a good idea for everything after all.
It's not the cloud.
It's not the Cloud????
Unfortunate Article Format - Poor editorial decision