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Cisco Says Vegas Conference Attendees' Information Was Leaked

Posted by timothy on from the hopefully-no-dropped-rows-on-the-flight-home dept.

Julie188 writes "Thousands of people got a nasty e-mail this morning from Cisco. The company was warning people that its attendee registration database for its Cisco Live 2010 event was hacked. Cisco Live 2010 is the company's annual user conference, held last week in Las Vegas with an estimated 18,000 in attendance. If it's not embarrassing enough for a company that sells security gear to get hacked, the e-mail also went out to people who didn't register and didn't attend the event. That raises questions about exactly what database was pried open and how bad the damage is. Cisco's e-mail said the hole was quickly closed and only business-card type information was exposed."

11 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. so what? by Lord+Ender · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't think of anything less important than seeing phonebook-style data made public. Losing credit card numbers or bank account numbers for large groups is bad; losing email addresses is not.

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    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    1. Re:so what? by foo1752 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Losing credit card numbers or bank account numbers for large groups is bad; losing email addresses is not.

      Losing email addresses is not AS BAD as losing more sensitive information, but it is still not good. I, for one, wouldn't be happy about that information being exposed.

    2. Re:so what? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Assuming they weren't arm-twisted into it, I'd say it's cool that they notified everybody.

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      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    3. Re:so what? by Mikkeles · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The fact that supposedly secure information was accessed is the main story. As in: they broke into your house and only managed to get a stuffed toy (this time).

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      Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
  2. It could be worse... by Extremus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They could stay quiet about it.

  3. It's just the website. by Securityemo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It was just a website hack into a low-security-data backend database. It's not like someone actually subverted any of their products.

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    Emotions! In your brain!
  4. Re:Routing error by skids · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Cisco's customers will not find bureaucratic bungling from them to be anything out of the ordinary, trust me, they are very used to it.

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    Someone had to do it.
  5. Competition? by FranTaylor · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Do you really think Cisco is going to be happy if their customer list falls into the hands of their competitors? If this data has profile info like "How much Cisco equipment have you bought in the last year" then it could be VERY VERY useful to their competitors.

    1. Re:Competition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Dear MobileTatsu-NJG, we noticed some information of yours on a website we are monitoring due to the Cisco data loss.

      We can offer BETTER security cheaper. Our services have never been compromised. You will be able to trust again. Guaranteed.

    2. Re:Competition? by Threni · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's useful if, for example, their competitors want to let everyone know that they buy stolen lists of email addresses to spam/cold call people with.

    3. Re:Competition? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I thought 'really really useful' would have a more interesting meaning than "SPAM PEOPLE WHO'VE ALREADY PURCHASED THE PRODUCTS THEY NEED". My bad.

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      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)