Hacker claims to have hacked Intel; credit card details compromised

The past year or so has taken the spotlight off worms and viruses. Security holes are now being exploited by hackers and we’ve seen a whole bunch of hacking incidents in the past year. 2012 looks like it’ll be no different, considering the number of hacking incidents that have made the news. The latest target seems to be Intel, the popular microprocessor manufacturer. The Hacker News has a story that mentions that a hacker, going by the alias ‘WeedGrower’ or ‘X-pOSed’ has managed to gain access to Intel’s data. Apparently, user details, such as credit card information, social security numbers, e-mails, passwords and many other details have been compromised.

Under attack...

The hacker has said that he had access to the database and also a vulnerability that allowed him to gain access to the information, but he wouldn’t go ahead and make those details public. However, he’s provided screenshots that show that credit card information was indeed stolen. The hacker who hacked into Intel is also said to have been responsible for hacking into other services, such as AOL, NASA, Hotmail, Myspace, Xbox, USBank, Yahoo! and VISA. One of the security holes in Intel’s servers was similar to the one on Dell’s services, which were hacked last month. Intel hasn’t acknowledged such an attack just yet, but such incidents do shed light on the lack of security and vulnerability that prevails in even the largest of companies.

The past year saw a number of attacks, the largest being Sony’s PlayStation Network attack in which a large number of user details, including credit card numbers were leaked. The service was eventually taken down for more than a month. Recently, Symantec, too was hacked with the hackers were demanding a sum of $50,000 in return for anti-virus blueprints. Symantec is best known for its security solutions and their servers getting hacked is quite a big deal. Another incident in recent times was the hacking of Ankit Fadia’s servers. Ankit Fadia is also well known in India for being an ethical hacker and writing books on the issues and offering lectures and courses.