Amid privacy scandals, the phone company claims that hackers have not obtained sensitive information.
Motherboard reports that a hacker stole the data of several hundred Verizon employees, including their names and phone numbers. The outlet verified the database’s legitimacy by calling several of the numbers included.
A hacker claimed that he had obtained the data through internal support. He convinced an employee to allow remote access and then used a script to copy data from the target computer.
“These employees are idiots and will allow you to connect to their PC under the guise that you are from internal support,”Motherboard received the following information from the hacker: They had also reached out to Verizon, asking for $250,000 to keep the database’s contents secret.
“Please feel free to respond with an offer not to leak you’re [sic] entire employee database,”They wrote.
While the communications company confirmed it had spoken with the individual – whom they referred to as a “fraudster” rather than a hacker – Verizon claimed the person had no “sensitive information”And they said no further.
They instead praised their internal security, insisting that they were secure “strong measures”To protect people and their systems, they have put in place security measures. Although at least some employee data is up-to-date, this information still presents a threat to both customers and employees from SIM swapping, social engineering, and other attacks. Potentially, hackers could log in with stolen credentials to pose as Verizon employees and convince users to hand over personal data.
Verizon is being plagued by hackers, both on the customer and employee end. There was a flood of fraudulent texts that targeted users using Verizon numbers late last year. “phishing” links. Users of the company’s Visible service also reported being hacked in October, a problem Verizon initially insisted did not exist before shifting to blaming customers for reusing passwords they had used elsewhere.
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As many as 14 million Verizon user records were left unsecured on an Amazon server controlled by Israeli company Nice Systems in 2017, including logs of customers who’d reached out to customer service, their cell phone numbers and account PINs.
Verizon supported Nice Systems by insisting that insecure storage was accidental and that the researcher had only gained access to sensitive data.
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