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Security Businesses Privacy Technology

Trend Micro Security Incident Involving Selling Customer Data Was an Inside Job (betanews.com) 16

Mark Wilson shares a report from BetaNews: Security firm Trend Micro has revealed details of an inside scam which led to personal details of its customers being exposed. The security incident dates back to August this year, and the company says that it was made aware of customers being contacted by fake Trend Micro support staff. Following an investigation lasting until the end of October, it was determined that it was a member of staff that had fraudulently gained access to a customer database and sold personal data to a third party.

Trend Micro says that the employee was able to access names, email addresses, support ticket numbers and telephone numbers, stressing that it was an inside job and not an external hack. The finger of blame points squarely at "a Trend Micro employee who improperly accessed the data with a clear criminal intent", and law enforcement is now involved. While the company says that the incident affects less that 1 percent of its 12 million consumer customers, this still means that the details of over 100,000 people could have been exposed.

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Trend Micro Security Incident Involving Selling Customer Data Was an Inside Job

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  • With Microsoft offering Security Essentials free with Windows, we don't need the antivirus companies anymore. Norton's repeated overloads of the Internet, ESET's foreign ownership, and this news about Trend, we're all less secure when we use these companies. Just stay up to date with Windows, be careful when you see the security shield from UAC, and not surfing into the Dark Web, and you'll be all set. Why give these companies your CC data and permission to bypass Microsoft's security limits when you can ju

    • You had me right up to "when you can just trust Microsoft because they have to be trusted anyway."

      There's this thing you should look into, it's called "Linux".

    • With Microsoft offering Security Essentials free with Windows, we don't need the antivirus companies anymore. Norton's repeated overloads of the Internet, ESET's foreign ownership, and this news about Trend, we're all less secure when we use these companies. Just stay up to date with Windows, be careful when you see the security shield from UAC, and not surfing into the Dark Web, and you'll be all set. Why give these companies your CC data and permission to bypass Microsoft's security limits when you can just trust Microsoft because they have to be trusted anyway.

      Said no sys admin ever....

      • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        I'm a sysadmin and I say this. Granted I don't work on windows anymore. Your systems should be rebuildable with data backup up, you shouldn't trust internal systems any more then external systems.

        Security Essentials is good enough, it's not enough to blindly rely on any AV. They give a false sense of security and generally cause extra problems by trying to manage multiple layers of your security model.
        • Right... if you can afford the SCCM license to go with it. Because without centralized management a virus solution does nothing for you.

          Go price SCCM and SCOM. No one outside of the fortune 1000 can afford it. $3500 per 2 cpus per server host. plus $60-$70 pet workstation?

          That $42,000 for my hyper-v server and $3200 for my workstations. Twice that for the server if they count threads and not cores.

          I've deployed SCCM and SCOM. Microsoft Endpoint Protection is not Security Essentials. However- in this form it

    • by Baleet ( 4705757 )
      Wish I had mod points, because I agree. This is one of the few issues on which I can say I have never had an issue with Microsoft. As ingrained is my habit of distrusting them, Security Essentials (Windows Defender, etc) have stood the test of time so far, which is about all I expect of anyone, including myself.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • That you could not trust your data with companies.

    Before someone says "Yeah but it was an individual within the company...", keep in mind that they are probably mirroring unethical behavior they are seeing other people getting away with inside the company.

  • by Retired ICS ( 6159680 ) on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @11:26PM (#59389680)

    If the Antivirus companies had not sued Microsoft over Microsoft's plan to make the 64-bit edition of Windows "Secure" which would have removed all the security holes that the "security snake-oil" crowd uses (thus putting them out of business, the basis for the suit), then Microsoft *might* have been able to make the Windows OS secure by default, precluding the need for snake-oil, and putting all these shady outfits out of business in the blink of an eye.

    Unfortunately Microsoft backed down and decided that a bug-ridden insecure hunk of crap was the best path forward for all concerned.

  • by sad_ ( 7868 ) on Thursday November 07, 2019 @06:59AM (#59390176) Homepage

    it sound like they could use a good security tool to limit and audit access to data.
    if only they knew of such a company that sells security products.

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