Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Cocoa hacking


Lest you think there’s any place on the Internet that is not an attractive target for hackers, here’s news that last week the Hershey’s consumer website was breached.

Hershey’s advises that consumers’ names, addresses, emails and birthdates were accessed. (At least whoever hacked the chocolate didn’t publish that information, the way Anonymous, the self-styled “hactivist” group did when they crashed the BART website on Sunday, allegedly in “retaliation” for BART blocking cell phone service to foil groups threatening to stop the trains on Thursday to protest several things. Look—it’s SF, and therefore a very long story.)

Also, the hackers messed with one or more of the site’s recipes.

Hershey’s assured us that they “have reviewed the recipes on this site to ensure their quality”, so, whew!

Still, just in the space of a few days we’ve seen that it doesn’t matter how serious or silly the motivation, determined hackers will try it on with just about any site. And consumer websites do not seem to prove all that big a challenge. So think about that when you slap up your personal details somewhere to get a $.50-off coupon or an email notification of Lindsay Lohan’s latest court appearance.


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