14 DAY TRIAL // You may think embassies, playing such an important role in relationships between countries, would have tight security measures installed. To be honest, I thought so myself, but apparently I was wrong. The information that leaked from the embassies is rather crucial, because it can seriously compromise the relations between two or more countries, if fully exploited.
Usernames and passwords for more than 100 e-mail accounts at embassies and governments worldwide have been posted online. Should a malicious user take advantage of this, he or she could have access to the compromised e-mails. So, what good could this do to the hacker? Well, the cyber-criminal could send e-mails from one embassy to another to disrupt any type of relationships. Just think about it, if he hacks one of these addresses and he receives an invitation he could decline and delete it, before the person whom the mail belonged to in the first place would even get a hold of it. That is quite nasty!
The countries that have been affected by this are: Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, India and Iran. So, as Computer Sweden reports, the affected embassies are 10 Kazakh one in Russia and one in the US, about 40 Uzbeki ones around the world, Indian ones in Nepal and the US, Russian ones in Nepal and Sweeden, as well as an Iranian one in the USA.
This could have been a pretty serious problem, had it been disclosed by a black hat hacker, but fortunately it has been discovered by security expert Dan Egerstad that has advised the affected ones to butch up their security. It's good to see these white had hackers that warn people about their "holes in the wall". It seems that not even after the events in Estonia, some governments don't take security seriously. I guess that they don't consider the dangers until something bad happens to them!