Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
State Worker Loses Identities To Virus After Surfing Porn
Just a tip: If you’re reading The Blog That Nobody Reads, which is this, at work, and your next web site to hit is a porn site, maybe you should just shelve that plan until you get home.
Especially if you’re using a government computer to surf for that porn.
Especially if it’s connected to a government network.
Especially if you’re on a government network because you work for the State of Oregon.
Especially if the agency for which you work is the Department of Revenue.
Especially if, in the course of surfing said porn, you download a virus.
Especially if the virus is so new that your malware detectors can’t pick it up.
Especially if the virus is a key-logger that collects passwords and sends them to the author of the virus.
Especially if, by doing this, the virus can cause 2,200 identies of Oregon taxpayers to be stolen.
I mean, if all of those things came to pass, it would be kind of bad wouldn’t it? Gee, if we don’t know for sure, I guess we’re about to find out.
More than 2,200 Oregon taxpayers’ identities were stolen by a keylogging Trojan horse that infected a state PC after an Oregon Department of Revenue worker browsed porn sites, officials admitted this week.
The identities included Social Security numbers, names, and addresses, and were transmitted to an unknown hacker by the keylogger, said the Department of Revenue in an online FAQ. According to the DOR, its anti-malware filters didn’t pick up the Trojan because it was so new that anti-virus vendors hadn’t yet created detecting signatures.
No taxpayer financial data was lost to the keylogger, the DOR claimed.
Aw gee, well that is certainly a good thing!
Although the part-time worker’s PC was infected in early January, the keylogger went undetected until May 15, when an audit of its hard drive was conducted after the employee was found downloading pornography during work hours and fired.
Monday, Oregon’s DOR began notifying taxpayers whose identities were exposed, and on Wednesday Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) promised that the state would pick up the tab for credit monitoring and other protective services.
You know what this whole identity theft thing is like? It’s like a rapidly-escalating epidemic of whatever can travel by epidemic, just any & all things, after every restaurant worker all over the civilized world develops an incurable drooling condition. From the hundred dollar plate of swordfish all the way down to a 99 cent McDonald’s cheeseburger, everything you can order & eat is just swimming in some stranger’s drool.
Sorry, I know it’s just before two o’clock on a Saturday and a lot of you bloggers are about to eat. But that’s what identity theft is like. We pay bills on the “innernets,” months go by and then a scary story comes out. Then a few more months go by, we pay some more bills, and another scary story comes out — we think very little about it.
These poor guys just had their Social Security numbers stolen because some asshole was surfing porn. With a keylogger grabbing his keystrokes for four freaking months before anyone got wise to what was going on.
So I realize my vulgar analogy might turn a few faces green out there, and I’m sorry for the momentary nausea, but I’m not sorry for my attempt to make the lesson a little more serious and a little easier to remember. If you aren’t doing anything about this…start doing something. Keep those numbers off the “innernets” until you have a good idea what’s being done with them, and where they’re going.
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