No Company is Too Secure for a Data Breach
VeriSign Inc, the company responsible for delivering people safely to more than half the world’s websites, was hacked repeatedly in 2010 by hackers who stole undisclosed information from the company. This breach is a reminder that no company or individual is too secure or too big to be attacked. In fact, targeted attacks on “high value” companies is more popular than ever.
VeriSign’s domain-name system processes about 50 billion queries daily. Hackers could use the stolen information to direct users to fraudulent sites and possibly even intercept email from federal employees or corporate executives, although classified government data moves through more secure channels.
VeriSign said its executives “do not believe these attacks breached the servers that support our Domain Name System network,” which ensures people land at the right numeric Internet Protocol address when they type in a name such as Google.com, but did not know for sure.
The VeriSign attacks were revealed in a quarterly U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing in October, which was following stricter guidelines that force companies to report security breaches to their shareholders.
VeriSign is just the latest in a list of high-value targets that have experienced data breaches, including RSA, Comodo, and DigiNotar.
When you consider that these companies are breached despite the major efforts they take to protect themselves shows that no company is every too safe or secure.
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