Internet Archive Resumes Operation

 

Internet Archive suffered three major hacking attacks. This exposed e-mails of  users of the website. Cyberattacks are a serious threat to various organizations. The reason this was such a concern was due to the amount of information Internet Archive contains. The website has collected webpages, printed material, and video from the decades. The Internet Archive has in a way been recording history. The October hacking attacks are a reminder that physical media should also be preserved. Otherwise information could be lost forever. Hackers were able to take advantage of a security flaw. Zendesk API tokens were not unrotated. What the Zendesk API token is used for password authentication. This also involves management of support tickets. The Internet Archive did not take proper security measures to prevent this type of breach. The Internet Archive has been operating since 1996 with the objective of providing "universal access to all knowledge." Audio files, software, and music are part of the massive digital  archive. The first indication of vulnerability was in 2022 with the Gitlab token. An estimated total of 31 million users were effected. The motivations of the hackers are unclear. The intent could either be for phishing or selling personal information to third parties. Various hacker groups have attacked Internet Archive. Internet Archive suffered a distributed denial of service attack. Hackers flood a website with traffic, which blocks regular users from getting access. This explains why it took so long to resume operation.  

Global IT Outage

 

A global IT outage has effected various businesses and facilities. This is probably one of the biggest IT malfunctions on a large scale. CrowdStrike claims that the outage was a result of a bug. What it revealed was the vulnerability of information technology networks. Cybersecurity should not just focus on viruses or hackers. It should examine malfunctions and vulnerabilities in technology. The world is very dependent on IT. Many individuals and companies are also dependent on Microsoft. What becomes even more precarious is personal data security. An IT outage could also put personal data at risk. Banking, healthcare, and various payment systems were impacted by the IT outage. When it comes to airline travel it caused much disorder. Flights had to be cancelled, because IT handles scheduling. Although CrowdStrike says it is fixing the issue, concerns remain. It could be time for Microsoft to reconsider using third party companies for IT protection. Companies are going to have to hire more IT and cybersecurity professionals. Updates to software should not result in technical difficulties. IT is too important to be managed in an undisciplined way. Shipping and payment transactions are done more with IT. The IT global outage effected up to 8.5 million Windows devices. This was based on Microsoft's findings. The incident proves that more companies need to be active, rather than have reliance on CrowdStrike.