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Verizon Exposes the Wrong 1,200 Email Addresses

Posted by timothy on from the but-this-was-the-before-picture dept.

netbuzz writes "If you're going to market your expertise by inviting 1,200 IT professionals to a seminar about securing data and protecting personal information, it's probably a good idea to protect the personal information of those you invite. On Tuesday, Verizon forgot that advice and blasted each of the 1,200 email addresses to everyone on the list ... and they did it 17 times."

8 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Blunder by mfh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whenever email scripts have too many recipients, they do tend to refresh and try again, which can cause dupes. These addresses were likely supposed to be in the BCC field, or nonexistent (duh). So it was a mistake.

    That's an embarassing blunder, to hold a seminar on keeping private info secure and then spamming who is attending the seminar. I wonder how much time they will spend on that blunder, explaining how it can happen to anyone, even the mighty Verizon, but this foolishness will not strengthen Verizon's sales pitch.

    Spammers attend these conferences. Now spammers have known email addresses of everyone there.

    This would only make a difference if spammers made money based on sending targeted email. They don't. They make money based on volume of addresses when a shady merchant pays them. So maybe they could make $25 on this list?

    Apart from making one person in Verizon look stupid, this also enforces the theory that it only takes one idiot to... the whole internet.

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    1. Re:Blunder by AndrewNeo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Probably because they assume it will be a valid address.

  2. Title is Misleading by rehtonAesoohC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not that Verizon exposed "the wrong" 1200 emails, it's that Verizon exposed any email addresses at all.

    /bad title?

    1. Re:Title is Misleading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sometimes you can get away with doing something stupid because nobody notices.

      This was not one of those times.

    2. Re:Title is Misleading by reymyster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I believe the "wrong" referred to in the title meant to imply that it was particularly bad to expose these specific emails, like when people say "you just messed with the wrong guy"

      --
      http://instagram.com/thephotographer
    3. Re:Title is Misleading by Gewalt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not that Verizon exposed "the wrong" 1200 emails, it's that Verizon exposed any email addresses at all.

      If ever there was a worst-case-scenario set of 1200 email addresses, this list was it.

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    4. Re:Title is Misleading by Naughty+Bob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If ever there was a worst-case-scenario set of 1200 email addresses, this list was it.

      Yes and no. In terms of potential harm done, these people are much more equipped than your average person to be able to mitigate this fuck up.

      On the other hand, if there was ever a subsection of people who you donn't want to piss off in this regard....

      --
      "Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
  3. Re:I know this is /. and all... by david_thornley · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except that there is absolutely nothing to distinguish some clerical errors and actual security issues. If information is leaked by clerical error, it's leaked just as effectively as if it were hacked out of an on-line database through cross-site scripting. Maybe more effectively.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes