Zappos' data breached as hackers make waves worldwide

Zappos’ data breached as hackers make waves worldwide Image

It's been a hackalicious weekend:

• Amazon-owned online retailer Zappos and its discount site, 6pm.com, are warning its 24 million customers to change their passwords after a data breach exposed personal information. In an email to customers Sunday, Zappos said some names, e-mail addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers, the last four digits of credit card numbers and cryptographically scrambled passwords had been hacked. However, Zappos said critical credit card information and other payment data was not accessed.

The Nevada-based company has reset all customer passwords, and is asking its users to set new ones. In a letter to Zappos employees, CEO Tony Hsieh called for "all hands on deck" to help answer customers' concerns in the coming days, and said that due to the massive amount of calls expected, the company's phone system has been shut down to avoid crashing, so all customer inquiries must go through email.

Hsieh said the compromised servers were in Kentucky, but offered no other details about the breach.

"We've spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers," Hsieh said. "It's painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident."

• Hackers disrupted the Israeli stock market and national airline, El Al, today, the latest incident in a cyber-campaign allegedly led by an underground Saudi group. The Associated Press reported the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange was hit by a denial-of-service attack that slowed, but did not stop, trading. El Al took down its website after threats that it would be targeted. The hackers did not access sensitive information at either site, the report said.

Earlier this month, the anti-Israeli Saudi hacking collective known as group-xp claimed credit for accessing 400,000 Israeli credit card accounts.

• In a Twitter post Saturday, an Indian hacker known as Yama Tough said he'll release the full source code for Symanetec's Norton Antivirus software on Tuesday. The post read: "This comming tuesday behold the full Norton Antivirus 1,7Gb src, the rest will follow…" Last week, Mountain View-based Symantec admitted hackers had managed to post source code from its enterprise antivirus software, but maintained its consumer product was still safe. The code was reportedly stolen from servers supporting India's military and intelligence services.

• And closer to home, City College of San Francisco admitted Friday that up to 100,000 current and past students, faculty and staff may have been affected by hackers who compromised the school's networks. Personal data captured from keystrokes and screenshots was sent overseas via malware that had been in place on the networks for more than a decade, the Associated Press reported. No cases of identity theft have yet been reported. The malware was discovered during the Thanksgiving break, and the community college has been working since to improve its network security. Still, students were warned not to visit any online sites that require a password while on school networks, as they may still be vulnerable.

Zappos' data breached as hackers make waves worldwide

Zappos' data breached as hackers make waves worldwide

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