The information yielded by the alleged hacking and data theft went into a much-hyped book on the couple's very-publicised divorce, written by Robert Hoffman, a tabloid journalist and friend of Jon Gosselin, the celebrity husband who is also named in the suit.
The book was pulled by Amazon after allegations that it relied on improperly-sourced information.
Hoffman claims to have found the information by rummaging through Ms Gosselin's bins, but is also quoted as hinting he has over 5,000 personal photos belonging to her - an unlikely find for a dumpster-diver.
The story has been carried by huge numbers of celeb-loving media[2] outlets[3] , including the notorious Mail Online[4] website, probably mainly as an excuse to carry plenty of photographs of the plaintiff in a variety of outfits.
All stories of course refer to the heinous act of hacking.
The legal papers[5] on the case, filed in the US District Court Eastern Division of Philadelphia and dug out by celeb site Radar Online[6] among others[7] , also make occasional use of the terms "hacking" and "hack", but as so often in these cases it would appear that the words are being used in the loosest possible sense.
A more accurate way of describing the husband's activities might perhaps be "guessing her password", and possibly even "knowing the password having been married to her for 10 years". There certainly seems to be no evidence of any special technical skill involved in accessing the information.
The moral of the story will of course be that you should ensure your passwords are fit for purpose and kept private.
And to change it to something that cannot be guessed, even by someone who knows the names of all your favourite pets[8] , former teachers and most beloved sports teams.
The same advice holds true for normal people, as well as celebrity octomoms. Better still, let a password manager utility create properly complex passwords for you, different ones for all sites, and all hidden behind a single extra-strong passphrase.
There is of course another side to this story, as it would be unkind to put the blame entirely on someone who seems to be guilty of nothing more than the almost universal crime of poor password hygiene.
There have been many cases of partners falling out and using their intimacy to get at information about their estranged other halves that they really should not be seeing, and many of these cases, quite apart from being rather sad, involve some sort of crime being perpetrated.
In a lot of cases, those involved are not fully aware[9] of the criminal nature of their activities.
So if you find yourself on the other side, trying to get at information which is not rightfully yours, ask yourself, should I really be doing this?
If it were, say, an expensive wristwatch or a fancy pair of shoes, rather than some digital bank records or racy celeb photos, would that make a difference? If it was secured by a physical lock rather than a password, would it be right to bust in and make off with the swag?
The answer should be, probably not - so leave that data alone.
Follow @VirusBtn
Follow @NakedSecurity[10] [11]
Image of Kate Gosselin[12] courtesy of s_bukley[13] / Shutterstock.com[14] . Image of padlock[15] courtesy of Shutterstock[16] .
References
- ^ Courthouse News Service on Gosselin lawsuit (www.courthousenews.com)
- ^ LA Times report on Gosselin lawsuit (www.latimes.com)
- ^ NY Daily News report on Gosselin lawsuit (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ Daily Mail report on Gosselin lawsuit (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ Court filing on Gosselin case, hosted on Radar Online (amradaronline.files.wordpress.com)
- ^ Radar Online covers Gosselin lawsuit case (radaronline.com)
- ^ Bullyville.com releases Gosselin legal brief (www.bullyville.com)
- ^ Naked Security on obvious password choices (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
- ^ Naked Security on Canadian cop unaware his stalking was criminal (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
- ^ Follow @VirusBtn (twitter.com)
- ^ Follow @NakedSecurity (twitter.com)
- ^ Kate Gosselin. Image courtesy of s_bukley and Shutterstock. (www.shutterstock.com)
- ^ s_bukley (www.shutterstock.com)
- ^ Shutterstock.com (www.shutterstock.com)
- ^ Padlock. Image courtesy of Shutterstock. (www.shutterstock.com)
- ^ Shutterstock homepage (www.shutterstock.com)
0 comments:
Post a Comment