Massive Cyber Attack on Epson Korea Poses Future Threat for Many Customers

South Korean unit of Japan's Seiko Epson Corp, Epson Korea is massively attacked by a data breach compromising 350,000 registered customers, reported naked security on August 22, 2011.

However, Epson Korea is highly regretful for this breach of data leakage and apologized customers for the unnecessary trouble, reports TECH PANELS on August 20, 2011.

Hackers broke through Epson's computers and hacked through the personal information of registered customers pertaining to passwords, contact numbers, names, and e-mail addresses.

Data stolen by hackers poses future threats to Epson customers in the form of malware circulation or phishing campaigns. Moreover, data breach of Epson's customers provides enough reasons for similar events in the future.

Further a warning has been posted in the website of Epson Korea to intimate customers for taking preventive measures like changing their passwords for future security. Customers are recommended to modify their passwords on its web sites and other portal sites.

However, the company responded by saying that though it had revealed the breach earlier, it was delayed in intimating the cyber attack to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) on August 18, 2011. The company also acknowledged that it informed its customers about the hacking on a priority basis.

Gabia, a local Web domain management company also acknowledged a similar hacking event on August 20, 2011, affecting Web connections with its clients. However, Cafe24 stated that there were no substantial losses or any kind of theft to Gabia's clients due to this event.

Ross Brewer, Managing Director for international markets, LogRhythm while addressing the issue of cyber breach at Epson held the consent that the company lacked significant controls, as reported by CRN on August 24, 2011. Brewer also added that the hacking attack did not provide sufficient evidence on people behind this event. As a result of which, Brewer included that Epson lagged proper IT security controls and effective surveillance towards monitoring anomalous behavior.

Remarkably, this kind of hacking event is not the first time of attack on Korea. Korea has faced similar hacking attack earlier causing a theft of personal and financial information. The South Korea Communications Commission revealed that on July 2011, hackers supposedly attacked popular Internet social networking websites and had stolen personal information of 35 Million users' including their names, web IDs, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and resident registration numbers.

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» SPAMfighter News - 8/30/2011