GlobalSign Says No New Certificates, Pending Investigation

Paul Williams

9/7/11

4:32 PM

Recently, GlobalSign was attacked by a hacker known as ComodoHacker. GlobalSign is a global organization based in Belgium. GlobalSign specializes in secure sockets layer client certificate authentication (SSL). SSL is a cryptographic protocol that provides security over the internet. GlobalSign sells this security to other organizations to protect company secrets and their customer’s information. ComodoHacker is one of countless hackers who constantly undermined the security of a person’s or a company’s information. ComodoHacker infiltrated the servers of GlobalSign and stole security certificates so that it could pretend to be a website such as Facebook.com and steal login information. ComodoHacker was able to do this to 500 different websites and from this it has gained an abundance of information. Unfortunately, this is a relatively small event compared to the internet attacks that go on all around the world.

Technology is evolving rapidly all around us. Just think how fast it has developed in the past 50 years. Technology is ever growing at an increasing rate. The world is becoming ever reliant on the devices that we communicate with. This reliance leaves us open for attack. Viruses, spyware, and hacking are all common terms that describe malicious software or unwelcomed intruders into computers. As quickly as technology is growing, internet security is not. These hackers have many different reasons for performing the attacks that they do. The attack on Sony that took down the PlayStation network for more than a month is said to be the result of the Sony prosecution of George Hotz who reversed-engineered the PlayStation 3 so that it could play unapproved third-party applications. Some hackers have been known to hack a system just because they can and then publish what they find on the internet. Then there is the classic hacker who takes over a system to steal data to make money. On the other hand, some white hat hackers are encouraged by companies to search for security weaknesses so that the company can fix them. Companies such as Google do this and will handsomely pay these hackers. Finally, there is one other hacker I would like to describe and that is state sponsored hacking. This is when a government funds and deliberately spies and steals secrets from other countries or businesses. China has recently been accused of this, more notably, against Google.

These are serious issues that must be addressed on a global scale. It affects us all. Beyond further developing internet security tactics, the globe must come together to prevent these attacks. Hackers can reach all around the world but the one being hacked has no retribution.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/231600880