Fergie's Tech Blog

Hacks Hit Embassy, Government E-mail Accounts Worldwide - UPDATE

A Computer Sweden article by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson, via PC World, reports that:

Usernames and passwords for more than 100 e-mail accounts at embassies and governments worldwide have been posted online. Using the information, anyone can access the accounts that have been compromised.

Computer Sweden has verified the posted information and spoken to the person who posted them. The posted information includes names of the embassies and governments, addresses to e-mail servers, usernames and passwords. Among the organizations on the list are the foreign ministry of Iran, the Kazakh and Indian embassies in the U.S. and the Russian embassy in Sweden.

Freelance security consultant Dan Egerstad posted the information. He spoke openly about the leak when Computer Sweden contacted him.

"I did an experiment and came across the information by accident," he said. Egerstad says he never used the information to log in to any of the compromised accounts in order not to break any laws.

posted by Fergie @ 8/30/2007 02:36:00 PM