Hackers accept broken into The Hartford insurance fellowship in addition to installed password-stealing programs on several of the company's Windows servers.
In a alert missive of the alphabet sent terminal calendar month to well-nigh 300 employees, contractors, in addition to a handful of customers, the fellowship said it discovered the infection inwards slowly February. Several servers were hit, including Citrix servers used past times employees for remote access to information technology systems. H5N1 re-create of The Hartford's missive of the alphabet was posted before this calendar week to the website of the Office of the New Hampshire Attorney General : http://doj.nh.gov/consumer/pdf/hartford2.pdf
"It was a real modest incident," said Debora Raymond, a fellowship spokeswoman. The victims were to a greater extent than frequently than non fellowship employees. Less than 10 customers were affected past times the malware, the W32-Qakbot Trojan, she said.
Qakbot has been simply about for well-nigh 2 years. Once installed it spreads from reckoner to reckoner inwards the network, taking steps to encompass its tracks every bit it logs sensitive information in addition to opens upwards dorsum doors for the hackers to access the network.
With 28,000 employees worldwide, the 200-year-old Hartford, Connecticut, theatre is ane of the country's largest insurance companies.
The Hartford's letters are going out to "users who logged onto an infected server (either through a Citrix session or back upwards purposes)" betwixt Feb. 22 in addition to Feb. 28, 2011, The Hartford said inwards its letter.
"We create know that the virus has the potential to capture confidential information such every bit banking concern describe of piece of job concern human relationship numbers, Social Security numbers, user accounts/logins, passwords, in addition to credit carte du jour numbers," the missive of the alphabet states.
It's non clear how The Hartford was infected, but hackers accept been targeting staffers for years instantly -- especially those inwards information technology -- amongst targeted email attacks, trying to fob them into visiting malicious websites or downloading Trojan Equus caballus programs. Security experts say that these attacks are widespread in addition to frequently methodically planned.
Despite the presence of keylogging software, the insurance company's lawyer, Debra Hampson, said that her fellowship has "no argue to believe that whatsoever information has been or volition locomote misused." Victims are beingness given 2 years' gratuitous credit monitoring.
Working amongst its antivirus vendor, The Hartford has cleaned upwards the infected servers in addition to is working on locking downwards its systems. One of the steps, Hampson said: "Providing additional privacy in addition to information safety preparation for employees inwards guild to warn them of the dangers of downloading files from unknown sources on the Internet."
Source : http://www.pcworld.com/
"It was a real modest incident," said Debora Raymond, a fellowship spokeswoman. The victims were to a greater extent than frequently than non fellowship employees. Less than 10 customers were affected past times the malware, the W32-Qakbot Trojan, she said.
Qakbot has been simply about for well-nigh 2 years. Once installed it spreads from reckoner to reckoner inwards the network, taking steps to encompass its tracks every bit it logs sensitive information in addition to opens upwards dorsum doors for the hackers to access the network.
With 28,000 employees worldwide, the 200-year-old Hartford, Connecticut, theatre is ane of the country's largest insurance companies.
The Hartford's letters are going out to "users who logged onto an infected server (either through a Citrix session or back upwards purposes)" betwixt Feb. 22 in addition to Feb. 28, 2011, The Hartford said inwards its letter.
"We create know that the virus has the potential to capture confidential information such every bit banking concern describe of piece of job concern human relationship numbers, Social Security numbers, user accounts/logins, passwords, in addition to credit carte du jour numbers," the missive of the alphabet states.
It's non clear how The Hartford was infected, but hackers accept been targeting staffers for years instantly -- especially those inwards information technology -- amongst targeted email attacks, trying to fob them into visiting malicious websites or downloading Trojan Equus caballus programs. Security experts say that these attacks are widespread in addition to frequently methodically planned.
Despite the presence of keylogging software, the insurance company's lawyer, Debra Hampson, said that her fellowship has "no argue to believe that whatsoever information has been or volition locomote misused." Victims are beingness given 2 years' gratuitous credit monitoring.
Working amongst its antivirus vendor, The Hartford has cleaned upwards the infected servers in addition to is working on locking downwards its systems. One of the steps, Hampson said: "Providing additional privacy in addition to information safety preparation for employees inwards guild to warn them of the dangers of downloading files from unknown sources on the Internet."
Source : http://www.pcworld.com/
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