In a message that undoubtedly should send shudders down the spines of those involved in the security of UK census data, the hacking collective known as LulzSec posted a message on Pastebin yesterday:
Greetings Internets,
We have blissfully obtained records of every single citizen who gave their records to the security-illiterate UK government for the 2011 census
We’re keeping them under lock and key though… so don’t worry about your privacy (…until we finish re-formatting them for release)
Myself and the rest of my Lulz shipmates will then embark upon a trip to ThePirateBay with our beautiful records for your viewing pleasure!
Ahoy! Bwahahaha… >:]
Assuming the veracity of their claims, I can only hope that they do not post/reveal everyone’s data but that they do explain how they got around the government’s putative security. (Note: Graham Cluley says Sophos is assuming it *isn’t* true until they see some proof; I guess I’m more pessimistic).
And would the hackers find (or scarily, have they already found) it as easy to acquire sensitive personal and medical data from the NHS and SCR (Summary Care Records) system? Privacy advocates have long expressed concerned about the security of the SCR system, and a massive compromise of that system could make the UK public less likely to trust it or want their records to become part of it. LulzSec already gave NHS one gentle warning, but what else have they accessed or acquired?
To date, LulzSec does not report that they have compromised any major U.S. health care databases but that may only be a matter of time. What would happen here should a large healthcare insurer’s database be acquired or a huge hospital system’s patient records database be compromised and posted online? How would that impact the development of large networked databases here? And what if they decided to take down a power grid “for the lulz?”
Back in the UK, Tamlin Magee comments on TechEye.net:
An expert with high levels of access to government spoke on condition of anonymity to TechEye – and has told us that the only thing that will make us stand up and take note will be a truly catastrophic disaster. We are not talking data theft. We are talking significant, weighted attacks on the country’s infrastructure. Hospitals. Power grids. Airports. Data leaks are just the beginning.
This is not sensationalism. This is real. The entire country needs to wake up from its nap – Sony didn’t teach us squat, neither will this, if true, but it should.
Tamlin is right, of course. And to those who still have not taken security more seriously because “It can’t happen to us,” I would say, “How do you know it hasn’t already happened to you?” According to the hackers themselves, not every compromise has been revealed. So my question to our government and large private sector firms that amass huge quantities of data is this: what are you doing right now to harden your security? Are you still vulnerable to SQL injections after all these years and after all of the warnings you’ve had? If so, you’re still playing with fire but it is us who will get burned.
There were also rumours earlier today that LulzSec had stolen details from the UK Census. This story always appeared somewhat dubious, and LulzSec has now officially denied any involvement.
