Hackers target military publisher database
in brief Military- and defence-minded publications owned by publisher Gannett were hacked earlier this month, the company has admitted, leaving the names, passwords and email addresses of active and retired military personnel exposed to the attackers.
On 7 June 2011, the Gannett Government Media family of websites suffered a cyber attack that resulted in some users being unable to access parts or all of the websites. We also discovered that the attacker gained unauthorised access to files containing information of some of our users. The information in those files included first and last name, user ID, password, email address, the internal number we assigned to the account and, if provided, ZIP code, duty status, pay grade and branch of service.
Among those publications targeted: DefenseNews, the Military Times, the Federal Times, the Army Times, the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Journal, the Armed Forces Journal, the Navy Times, the Air Force Times, the Marine Corps Times.
The company says it has hired an "outside computer forensics company" to help it investigate and strengthen its security system.
Via ZDNet US