The Doctors Show

Lessons in hacking from DPS attack

Q: If an organization like DPS can have their email hacked, how can us little guys ever be safe?

A: The very high profile publication of sensitive documents reportedly acquired from the email accounts of various officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety this week has some very real lessons for all of us.

Despite various media accounts that are reporting that DPS was “hacked,” based on what we have seen so far, it seems that the more likely scenario was that individual member’s email accounts were compromised (there’s a big difference).

LulzSec, the hacker group behind this, has announced that they will continue to publish compromised files on a weekly basis, so only time will tell just how much information has been compromised.

Since the individual email accounts seem to be the point of exploitation, this could have happened in a number of places (at work or from home) or for a number of reasons.

Our forensics team evaluated the more than 700 files that were posted by LulzSec and the digital stamps (metadata) hidden in many of the files show that they were created by a wide variety of authors beyond the group of users that were known to be compromised, which would be consistent with a library of files that were received as attachments.

One possible scenario is that since all of the passwords that were published for the compromised accounts were very weak (one was actually 12345) or used common words, the hackers used simple password breaking tools to gain access to the accounts.

The lesson here is that if you don’t use letters and numbers in combinations for your passwords and you don’t avoid using common words that are in the dictionary, you expose yourself to readily available tools for breaking passwords. The more characters you use, the more secure the password becomes and if you sprinkle in special characters like ! - ? ( ) & $ (which some systems won’t support) you can improve the security even further.

Another scenario is that these officers were targeted with very well crafted email messages that tricked them into allowing a “key logger” or other malware to be installed into their computer, which allowed the hackers to record keystrokes or remotely access their email accounts.

Since home computers tend to be less secure for a variety of reasons (expired security software, no firewall, etc.), it’s much easier to gain access to a large corporate or government mail system by compromising a user’s home computer and wait for them to access their work email system.

GYM ACCOMPLISHMENT - Welcome to The Doctors TV Show

Well I went to the gym tonight with my hubby (my biggest supporter) and started on the treadmill. I dont know what got into me me but i kicked up the speed and the next thing I knew was I WAS RUNNING!!! This is the first time I have ran! Of course I was only able to do it for a minute but I did it three times! It felt so good and my heart rate was up to 148. So cool. So now I will try to do that on a daily basis. I am down another pound I am now 158. Seems to good to be true. From 215 to 158, maybe I should pinch myself to see if its true. I had to go down another size too. Funny thing is I want to wear the bigger clothes cuz its getting expensive buying clothes everyother weekend (but on the inside I am glowing with pride) My goal is at my finger tips and I can see it. I am gaining more self esteem each day. I am starting to accept the compliments from others and no longer feel awkward about them either. Taking each day as it comes is a good thing. Hang in there everyone and as usual I will continue to say WE ARE ALL LOOSERS!

Congratulations...I just said the same thing to my daughter yesterday when I went to Eddie Bauers and bought 16 shorts.  I said I wanted to pinch myself to see if it was real.  I went from 24s being too tight to a 16 since January.  I am not running but I do go as fast as I can on eliptical every 2 minutes.  I went from 240 to 179.  I have a ways to go...49 pounds.  It is so exciting.  You will reach your goal!  Give yourself a big pat on the back!

The Doctors 5-Minute Health Fixes, The Prescription for a Lifetime of Great Health

The Northwestern reporter

The doctors' dilemmas

The monster show, a cultural history of horror

Broadcasting & cable