Australian Broadcasting Corporation has experienced a series of a data breaches that has negatively affected its day-to-day operations. Sensitive information from the organization is likely to be in the wrong hands after what might be inappropriate handling of the website by the administrator. The data breach was discovered by a security firm known as the Kromtech Alliance Corporation.
A.B.C.'s 2013 Data Breach
Australian Broadcasting Corporation had been hit by a data breach in 2013, leaving thousands of its users vulnerable. The data breach and subsequent publication was conducted by a hacktivist, reportedly from overseas, who penetrated A.B.C.'s website and exposed thousands of users' sensitive data.
Information including passwords hashes, usernames, and names, at minimum, was compromised - leaving it all in the hands of the public. Australia was facing one of the most challenging times in history regarding its cultural diversity.
This event followed religion intermixing and an increased amount of Muslims migrating and settling in the country. Many activists have come out to strongly condemn how Islamic ideologies have been infiltrating the free-based society.
One of the most renowned anti-Muslim activists from the Netherlands stirred up the hacktivist Phr0zenMyst. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed Mr. Geert Wilders on his views about the Islamic faith. Wilders, the leader of the Party For Freedom, is quoted being harsh on Islamic ideologies and even condemning the immigration of Muslims to European countries. He warned that the exodus will infiltrate the society and end European countries being more or less like Islam-dominant countries.
On his visit to Australia and upon reception by its government in a diplomatic way, many people saw it as if the government were supporting his views. Hacktivists not only went to the streets, but also to the Internet to reach a larger audience.
One hacker took it further than Anonymous' announcement of protesting and instead went ahead to target the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and compromised one of their websites. Troy Hunt, a cyber-security expert, was quick to point out the weakness of their password hashes, noting that it only took 45 seconds to crack just over 50% of the published password database.
A.B.C. was quick with their response, taking their website offline to avoid any further damage. They proceeded to notify the affected users and directed them to change the passwords for them to secure their accounts.
A.B.C. Commercial Inadvertently Exposes Sensitive Data
Security experts recently identified data that was connected with Australia Broadcasting Corporation Commercial, a subgroup of A.B.C. dedicating to generating revenue through retail, content sales, and consumer publishing.
Security researchers from Kromtech were keen to note that the data included stock files and MySQL databases with login details for a repository with advance video content, content licensing requests, and access credentials for end users to obtain licensed content.
There are high chances that the data may not be in the wrong hands, as it took less than an hour before A.B.C. secured the reported vulnerabilities. Although the security risk was addressed within minutes, the organization did not assume all was well.
It is alleged that the administrator from the Australian broadcasting corporation misconfigured their Amazon Simple Storage Services (S3). Amazon S3 is used to make work easier for developers as it gives them fast, reliable and inexpensive services to retrieve information online.
Kromtech showed that the administrator was responsible for the recent leakage to the public. After misconfiguring the Amazon S3 buckets, the public was able to access the aforementioned sensitive data from the website's database. A.B.C.'s data leakage comes at a time after Amazon provided information for how to secure their S3 buckets.
According to the report on the data breach, the available information came from backups of A.B.C. Commercial's MySQL database. There is no definite effect of the data breach, as no one is reported to have had access to the database in the short span of time it was vulnerable. The moderators of the website could not leave anything to chance, though, and the affected users were notified of the technical hitch and to change their login details.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation will have to evolve with the growing nature of hackers and computer technology to keep their system updated with current security practices; this will help them avoid any future instances of data breaches and exposure in their company. For now, only time will tell who, if anyone, has gotten ahold of the data during the small period it was vulnerable and exposed. Customers and users of A.B.C. Commercial's services will need to be more vigilant for any suspicious behavior with their accounts.
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