PC Tools Lists Top Five Web Blunders of 2008

San Francisco-based PC Tools, a security software vendor, has revealed the biggest five Internet bungles of 2008.

According to the company, the year's first greatest web-based mistake was one that could have cracked the Internet. This involved vulnerability in the DNS (Domain Name System) of the Internet, detected by a security consultant Dan Kaminsky. With this vulnerability, an attacker could change the URL addresses of well-known websites to that of a malevolent server; thereby, enabling the miscreant to phish data from users.

Security experts said that the development is a basic issue impacting the design as the system behaves in exactly the same way as is expected

The second blunder of the highest rating occurred in September 2008 when a 20-year-old hacker used Yahoo's password recovery software to make an entry into the personal e-mail of Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska. In July 2008, the FBI had searched the residence of another teenage hacker, who boasted of infiltrating the Gmail account of Miley Cyrus, a Disney starlet, to steal her photos.

The third biggest Internet bungle of 2008, according to the company, was also taken place in September 2008. In this, sections of the advanced computer network that the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research used to analyze the scientific proofs regarding black-holes as well as hypotheses of the universe's extra dimensions were hacked.

Moreover, the fourth greatest bungle occurred in July 2008 when it was found that NASA's laptops on the International Space Station were loaded with malware to steal online gamers' passwords.

The last Web blunder in 2008 related to seizures by hackers who breached the website of the US Epilepsy Foundation in March 2008 and posted numerous links on its pages that contained flashing images. Besides this, in 2008, botnets were used as a key method to deliver unwanted attacks that ranged from malware contamination to ordinary spam.

And so far as techno-peasants are concerned, it is perhaps good news that only spammers have been behind the gravest Internet bungles of 2008. However, it is hardly reassuring to know that some computer systems worldwide, although of the most sophisticated kind, are far from safe.

Related article: PC-Virus of 2005 Threatening Japanese Bank Accountholders, Warns Symantec

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