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Viruses Stole City College of S.F. Data For Years

Posted by Soulskill on from the measuring-failure-in-decades dept.

An anonymous reader sends this quote from an article at the San Francisco Chronicle: "Personal banking information and other data from perhaps tens of thousands of students, faculty and administrators at City College of San Francisco have been stolen in what is being called 'an infestation' of computer viruses with origins in criminal networks in Russia, China and other countries, The Chronicle has learned. At work for more than a decade, the viruses were detected a few days after Thanksgiving, when the college's data security monitoring service detected an unusual pattern of computer traffic, flagging trouble."

6 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Human failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "students and faculty have used college computers to do their banking"

    That's the main problem. Using sensitive data through public locations such as a college computer is not, in any way, safe.

    1. Re:Human failure by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      After years of explaining this to people, I have come to the conclusion that no matter what people are going to do it. Simply put, if banks allow people to log in to their accounts from random computers, people are going to do so without any regard for security. It is convenient, and the one thing you can expect people to do is something that is convenient.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    2. Re:Human failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      write only thumbdrive

      That sounds pretty useless

    3. Re:Human failure by Khyber · · Score: 4, Funny

      No! It's a GREAT layer of security! You can't load into memory what you can't read!

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  2. Re:Since 1999? by FoolishOwl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A network that is heavily used by a chronically underfunded institution -- that's what kind.

  3. Re:Missing details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't know WTF porn sites you guys are visiting, but there are PLENTY of them out there that have no popups, no viruses, and fewer ads than MSNBC. Serioiusly. Porn sites with viruses are NOT porn sites. They are VIRUS sites that use porn to attract virus clickers. Did you learn nothing from Anna Kournikova?