14 DAY TRIAL // 'We got punk'd' the Tucson Police Department should say after their official website has been hacked by an Indonesian hacker. All the press releases published on the webpage were renamed to "Hmei7 has touched your soul", The Register reported today. According to the same source, the hacker managed to bypass the firewall and injected an SQL code, in order to get access to the press release category. The website has been restored and all the media releases are available just like they were published before the attack.
This is how we're gonna start another discussion about the security of the authorities' computers. As the police systems work with such important information, a simple hack attack over their website can easily turn into a real threat for the details stored on their hard drives. This is just another example that our data is not safe wherever it is stored, and the past incidents come to support this statement.
A few weeks ago, one of the most important data losses took place in the United Kingdom, where the HMRC lost information concerning 25 million people. According to reports, the data was supposed to be transferred to another department, so it was copied on two CDs. Although the authorities said that the discs might still be in government's property, nobody knows for sure if the information felt into criminal hands or not. Only one thing is sure: the data was unencrypted, so some of the ones who find the discs could access it with ease.
Now, is it that hard to install a security solution to block these malicious attempts? OK, I know the Tucson Police Department had a firewall, but the officials working with such important details should hire some security experts in order to secure the computers and prevent future data losses.