Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
Is Booz Allen Hamilton Shady? Anonymous Thinks So, Hence the Data Breach
July 26, 2011
I've missed a lot of things this month while recovering from a knee replacement (a miracle operation, but not while you're struggling through recuperation), but one thing I wanted to remark upon was the recent hack of a Booz Allen Hamilton server by the hacker group Anonymous.
SC Magazine reported earlier this month that Anonymous had released the e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords of some 90,000 military users. Reportedly, the server had no security measures in place and the passwords were encrypted using the often-maligned MD5 hash algorithm.
Is Booz Allen Hamilton "shady?" Is it involved with nefarious surveillance and government corruption? I have no idea (though nothing surprises most of us anymore). Part of the data dump was information concerning other companies allegedly engaged in shady practices – the operation itself was part of AntiSec (Anti-Security) which calls upon hackers worldwide to expose corruption within governments and corportations.
Booz Allen Hamilton, which offers (ahem) a host of cybersecurity solutions, declined to comment. Hopefully, they did some intensive remediation of their own security.
Whatever you may think of Anonymous and its legion of hackers, they continue to underscore how truly lousy government and corporate security really is.
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