Austrian Economy Chamber Data Leaked by Anonymous

The webserver of the Austrian Economy Chamber (WKO) was accessed by a group of hackers and a large number of documents were made public on the internet.

The Austrian faction of the infamous hacktivists state that they weren't the ones to hack the server, claiming that the records were handed to them by another group which found the information using Google.

If this is right, then it means that no actual hacking took place, instead, WKO implemented a weak security policy that made it possible for sensitive data to emerge on the internet within the results of a simple search.

According to the Austrian Independent, more than 6000 data sets, belonging mostly to the real estate management section clients were leaked.

The Economy Chamber revealed in a press statement that only email and postal addresses got out, but I'd say that's enough.

Just like its bigger brother, Anonymous Austria likes to attract the attention of the media, not long ago claiming to own 600,000 files belonging to a public health insurance company and publishing the personal information of 25,000 police officers. Political parties have also been targeted by the group, both Social Democrats and the Freedom Party feeling their wrath when their official websites were defaced.

Back in July, a member of the group told the Kurier "Pupils, university students and young employees can be found among our members, but also unemployed people, civil servants and members of the army."

Many situations have been presented when cybercriminals don't manage to take over websites of the information contained on them because they possess advanced computing knowledge, but because the site's administrators failed to implement proper security measures or they fell for social engineering tricks.

A strong password and raised awareness, complemented by the training of a company's employees, could save any firm a whole lot of time, money and unwanted media coverage.