By Kirk Ladendorf
|
Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 09:39 AM
Stratfor, the Austin company that took its website down on Christmas
Day after a hacking attack, has reopened the site with bolstered
security.
A hacker group called Anonymous claimed credit for the attack and
took credit card information belonging to thousands of customers. Some
of those credit cards were used to make donations to non-profit groups,
including the Red Cross.
Stratfor, which provides geopolitical analysis, said its servers had
been damaged in the attack. The company retailed Sec Theory, an Internet
security firm, to rebuild its website, email system and internal
infrastructure. It also hired CSID, an Austin company that protects
against identity theft, to work with its customers at Stratfor’s
expense.
The company also has built a new section of its website to tell its
story of the hacking attack.
The company said it will move its entire e-commerce process to a highly
secure third-party system, which will eliminate the need for Stratfor to
store credit card information in-house.
The company also hired Verizon Business to conduct a forensic review
of the hack and it continues to cooperate with an FBI investigation.
“We did not encrypt credit card files,” said Stratfor CEO George
Friedman of the company’s practice before the attack. “That was our
failure. As the CEO of Stratfor, I take responsibility. I deeply regret
that this occurred and created hardship for our customers and friends.”
By some estimates about 75,000 customers names, addresses and credit
card numbers were exposed. One cyber security analyst, John Bumgarner,
told the Los Angeles Times that thousands of those names exposed
included military personnel, while 212 email addresses were from the FBI
and dozens more from the National Security Agency and the Central
Intelligence Agency.
The company said its website will be free and accessible for all on a
temporary basis, but it will contain only the company’s most recent
reports. All archived files will be gradually restored.
Over the next few weeks, the company will communicate with
subscribers about how to obtain new, secure passwords and safely engage
in credit card transactions.
Source Article: http://goo.gl/AKoI2
