Russian hackers steal 1.2 BILLION passwords

‘Companies that rely on usernames and passwords have to develop a sense of urgency about changing this,’ Avivah Litan, a security analyst at the research firm Gartner told the Times.

Retailer Target Corp. is still struggling to win back its shoppers’ trust after hackers believed to be attacking from Eastern Europe stole 40 million credit card numbers and 70 million addresses, phone numbers and other personal information last winter.

Alex Holden, the founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security, told the Times that most of the sites hit by the Russian hackers are still vulnerable to further break-ins. Besides filching 1.2 billion online passwords, the hackers also have amassed 500 million email addresses that could help them engineer other crimes, according to Hold Security.

So far little of the information stolen in the wave of attacks appears to have been sold to other online crooks, according to the Times. Instead, the information is being used to send marketing pitches, schemes and other junk messages on social networks on Twitter, the newspaper said.

The breadth of these break-ins should serve as a chilling reminder of the skullduggery that has been going undetected on the Internet for years, said John Prisco, CEO of another security firm, Triumfant.

‘This issue reminds me of an iceberg, where 90 percent of it is actually underwater,’ Prisco said in an emailed statement. ‘That’s what is going on here… So many cyber breaches today are not actually reported, often times because companies are losing information and they are not even aware of it.’

The news follows claims by a Berlin-based hacker that he’s found a way to infiltrate communication systems on planes through Wi-Fi and inflight entertainment systems.

Ruben Santamarta, a consultant with cyber security firm IOActive, is scheduled to explain his method at this week’s Black Hat hacking conference in Las Vegas.

If his claim is confirmed, it could prompt a serious review of aircraft security.

‘These devices are wide open. The goal of this talk is to help change that situation,’ Mr Santamarta, 32, told Reuters.

The researcher said he discovered the vulnerabilities by ‘reverse engineering’ – or decoding – highly specialised software known as firmware, used to operate communications equipment.

This equipment is made by companies including Cobham Plc, Harris Corp, EchoStar Corp’s Hughes Network Systems, Iridium Communications Inc and Japan Radio Co Ltd.

In theory, a hacker could use a plane’s onboard Wi-Fi signal or inflight entertainment system to hack into its avionics equipment, potentially disrupting or modifying satellite communications.

This could interfere with the aircraft’s navigation and safety systems, Mr Santamarta said

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