The Education Ministry, Electoral Service and military servers used by the Chilean government have been infiltrated by a hacker. The servers contained the personal details of over 6 million Chileans, which has now briefly become publicly available through a forum posting to a technology blog site.
The story was reported by the El Mercurio newspaper, which said the hacker also left a message stating his reasons for the act. His intention was to uncover just how poor the security was on these important servers and show the lack of overall data protection there exists in Chile.
The 6 million records included full addresses, telephone numbers, ID card details and academic records. The police are currently carrying out a full investigation into the incident.
Read more at BBC News
Matthew’s Opinion
If the hacker had taken the 6 million records from the servers, proved he had them publicly and never released them he would have been doing what he stated – showing where the cracks are. But he decided to release them publicly for every one to see and potentially use, making me question his true intentions.
It may have been the only way to make the problem truly public and get it covered in the news. But it would have gotten similar news coverage if the information was posted to a reputable security vendor instead, who may of even helped publicise it.
The Chilean government have been outed for a lack of security, but now also has to deal with millions of records being made public and the problems that can cause.
Tags: hdtv, AAC, computers, Ogg
