Target's Data Breach Started With an HVAC Account

Jim Hall writes "Security blogger Krebs reports that Target's data breach started with a stolen HVAC account. Last week, Target said the initial intrusion into its systems was traced back to network credentials that were stolen from a third party vendor. Sources now claim that the vendor in question was a refrigeration, heating and air conditioning subcontractor that has worked at a number of locations at Target and other top retailers. Attackers stole network credentials from Fazio Mechanical Services, then used that to gain access to Target's network. It's not immediately clear why Target would have given an HVAC company external network access, or why that access would not be cordoned off from Target's payment system network."

Comments

FUCK BETA

[synapse7]

Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system. If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this [slashdot.org] in a new tab. After seeing that, click here [slashdot.org] to return to classic Slashdot. We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project. We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott [slashdot.org] Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta Commentors - only discuss the Beta - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention. Discussion of Beta [slashdot.org] Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live [slashdot.org] Alternative Slashdot [altslashdot.org]

You have reserved a lot of space for that.

[dccase]

With the beta you can only see 3 or 4 whiny replies per page on a big screen.
No way I'm scrolling through thousands of them.

I don't think I could be arsed to read through many good ones either.

Buh Bye

P.S. It automatically ate my line breaks. Funny it wants to save space by removing actual message formatting.

I try something new

[oRCAD Monkey]

After my nap I had a fantastic idea. If I copy classic Slashdot web page and post to beta, maybe, maybe beta change to classic. I hope I fix beta and everyone will be happy again Slashdot Log out oRCAD Monkey Submit Newsletter Jobs Channels SlashTV rss stories submissions popular blog ask slashdot book reviews games idle yro cloud hardware linux management mobile science security storage Slashdot journal entries can be automatically submitted as stories Newer Older Target's Data Breach Started With an HVAC Account Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 06, 2014 @04:05PM from the sneaking-in dept. Jim Hall writes "Security blogger Krebs reports that Target's data breach started with a stolen HVAC account. Last week, Target said the initial intrusion into its systems was traced back to network credentials that were stolen from a third party vendor. Sources now claim that the vendor in question was a refrigeration, heating and air conditioning subcontractor that has worked at a number of locations at Target and other top retailers. Attackers stole network credentials from Fazio Mechanical Services, then used that to gain access to Target's network. It's not immediately clear why Target would have given an HVAC company external network access, or why that access would not be cordoned off from Target's payment system network." Read the 20 comments xsecurity story Military Electronics That Shatter Into Dust On Command Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 06, 2014 @03:22PM from the poof-it's-gone dept. First time accepted submitter MAE Keller writes "Two U.S. companies are joining a military research program to develop sensitive electronic components able to self-destruct on command to keep them out of the hands of potential adversaries who would attempt to counterfeit them for their own use. From the article: 'Last Friday DARPA awarded a $2.1 million contract to PARC, and a $3.5 million contract to IBM for the VAPR program, which seeks to develop transient electronics that can physically disappear in a controlled, triggerable manner.'" Read the 129 comments xbetatest xmilitary xtechnology xditchbeta xvaprware story The Standards Wars and the Sausage Factory Posted by timothy on Thursday February 06, 2014 @02:40PM from the these-things-take-time dept. Esther Schindler writes "We all know how important tech standards are. But the making of them is sometimes a particularly ugly process. Years, millions of dollars, and endless arguments are spent arguing about standards. The reason for our fights aren't any different from those that drove Edison and Westinghouse: It's all about who benefits – and profits – from a standard. As just one example, Steven Vaughan-Nichols details the steps it took to approve a networking standard that everyone, everyone knew was needed: 'Take, for example, the long hard road for the now-universal IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. There was nothing new about the multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) and channel-bonding techniques when companies start moving from 802.11g to 802.11n in 2003. Yet it wasn't until 2009 that the standard became official.'" Read the 136 comments xit xwireless xnetworking xbureaucracy xorganization story New Type of Star Can Emerge From Inside Black Holes, Say Cosmologists Posted by Soulskill on Thursday February 06, 2014 @02:00PM from the cross-black-holes-off-your-list-of-good-hiding-places dept. KentuckyFC writes "Black holes form when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own weight. Since there is no known force that can stop this collapse, astrophysicists have always assumed that it forms a singularity, a region of space that is infinitely dense. Now cosmologists think quantum gravity might prevent this complete collapse after all. They say that the same force that stops an electron spiraling into a nucleus might also cause the collapsing star to 'bounce' at scales of around 10^-14cm. They're calling this new state a 'Planck star' and say its lifetime would match that of the black hole itself as it evaporates. That raises the possibility t