Seen on Slashdot, Radu Dragusin writes:
IEEE suffered a data breach which I discovered on September 18. For a few days I was uncertain what to do with the information and the data. Yesterday I let them know, and they fixed (at least partially) the problem. The usernames and passwords kept in plaintext were publicly available on their FTP server for at least one month prior to my discovery.
Radu provides additional details about the leak and his analyses of exposed data on IEEElog.
This is not IEEE’s first breach involving members’ information. A November 2010 hack affecting 828 members was disclosed in February 2011. And in April 2011, some members who signed up for life insurance underwritten by NY Life Insurance were notified that a mailing error by Marsh U.S. Consumer exposed some of their information to other members.
Update: Oh hell…. I won’t post links, but it has been pointed out that IEEE’s log files have been mirrored in a number of places on the Internet. If you’re an IEEE member, you may want to search to see what information about you has been exposed. See update 3, though.
Update2: IEEE issued the following statement:
IEEE has become aware of an incident regarding inadvertent access to unencrypted log files containing user IDs and passwords. We have conducted a thorough investigation and the issue has been addressed and resolved. We are in the process of notifying those who may have been affected.
IEEE takes safeguarding the private information of our members and customers very seriously. We regret the occurrence of this incident and any inconvenience it may have caused.
Update 3: Despite I tweet I saw yesterday, it’s not clear whether the actual log files have been mirrored or if it’s just the index of files that has been mirrored. If you know that the contents of the log files have been mirrored, please email me.