Embassy And Government E-mail Accounts Hacked Worldwide
Saturday, September 01, 2007
I was watching Star News (an Indian news television channel) yesterday and I heard a news about someone hacking the e-mail accounts of the embassy and government of India. Later when I heard the news in detail, it revealed that it is a Swedish hacker who has changed passwords of the e-mail accounts of most of the top government offices worldwide.I tried to surf the net for further details but I was only able to find the details below and not the exact site where the details of the password are posted. Below are the details I collected:
Usernames and passwords for more than 100 e-mail accounts at embassies and governments worldwide have been posted online. Using the information, anyone can access the accounts that have been compromised.
Computer Sweden has verified the posted information and spoken to the person who posted them. The posted information includes names of the embassies and governments, addresses to e-mail servers, usernames and passwords. Among the organizations on the list are the foreign ministry of Iran, the Kazakh and Indian embassies in the U.S. and the Russian embassy in Sweden.
Of the compromised accounts, 10 belong to the Kazakh embassy in Russia. Around 40 belong to Uzbeki embassies and consulates around the world. Login details for e-mail accounts at the U.K. visa office in Nepal were also posted. Login details for the foreign ministry of Iran, the Kazakh and Indian embassies in the U.S. and the Russian embassy in Sweden were also posted.
Computer Sweden has contacted both the Russian and Indian embassies in Stockholm for comment. The Russian embassy confirmed the leaks and says that logins have now been changed. The Indian embassy declined to confirm the information and give comment.
Computer Sweden has not published where the login details can be found. The information in this story has been verified by Computer Sweden without using any of the published login details.
I am so surprised when I first heard the news. Even government emails are not safe. I just wonder what would happen to small personal accounts as ours. I know some softwares like key loggers by which hackers could hack our activities of the words we typed but I thought if I stay input at my house and only use my personal computer and access my emails, nobody could hack it, but this recent action has made me feel somewhat insecure. I hope the antivirus softwares and top email id companies will take this thing in account and try to find out a secure log in system. Till then I guess I will be changing my password frequently from now on and I suggest the rest of people to do so just to be on the safe side.
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