NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 21 January
21-01-2010
by Deirdre McArdle
Hackers target Boards.ie | Operators launch Haiti appeal
Boards.ie has informed its users that its database was attacked on Thursday morning and part of the database which includes "members' usernames, email addresses and obfuscated passwords" was accessed. Boards.ie says it has contacted the Gardai, the Data Protection Commissioner and an independent security consultant and has changed all passwords as a precaution. It advised users that if they use a similar username/password combination on any other sites, they should consider changing them. Read more about the incident and Boards.ie's advice on Boards.ie.
In more security news, a study published by data security firm Imperva identifies the world's most common passwords. In first position is "123456" with number sequences such as "12345678" and "123456789" featuring four other times in the top 10. The word "password" comes in at number four, while "iloveyou" is the fifth most commonly used password. "Everyone needs to understand what the combination of poor passwords means in today's world of automated cyber attacks: with only minimal effort, a hacker can gain access to one new account every second -- or 1,000 accounts every 17 minutes," explained Imperva's CTO Amichai Shulman. The report analysed 32 million passwords, which were recently exposed in the so-called Rockyou.com breach. It discovered that almost 50 percent of users used names, slang words, dictionary words or trivial passwords (consecutive digits, adjacent keyboard keys) as passwords. Shulman warned that enterprises could be vulnerable if employees used the same passwords they use on sites like Facebook in the workplace, particularly if they are among those who are using passwords like "123456".
European Union regulators have given the green light to Oracle's USD7.4 billion takeover of Sun Microsystems. EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said she had cleared the deal because "competition and innovation will be preserved". The EU had launched an investigation into the takeover in September. Oracle said it now expected to complete the deal "shortly". It is still waiting for approval in China and Russia; US regulators have already backed the acquisition.
Eircom announced the new line-up of its board on Thursday. As reported on Thursday morning Ned Sullivan is to maintain his position as chairman, and he will be joined on the board by Jerome Barrett, Greg Sparks and Paul Donovan. Also joining the board are Tan Guong Ching, non-executive chairman of Signapore Technologies Telemedia; Lee Theng Kiat, CEO of STT; and Steven Terrell Clontz, MD of STT North American and Europe.
In more news of Eircom, the telecoms firm on Thursday launched eircom StudyHub, an online learning application for secondary school students which will be made available for free to Eircom customers with 3Mbps or higher broadband. StudyHub is powered by ExamSupport and contains 400 hours of educational content, focussing on 24 Junior and Leaving Certificate subjects. The content has been devised by 34 teachers and is presented online in over 260 learning packs. Each pack consists of: a 25-35 minute video e-lesson, a video of an exam model answer, lesson notes and an MP3 audio version of the lesson.
Mobile operators O2, Vodafone, Meteor and Three, through the Irish Cellular Industry Association (ICIA), have launched a fundraising initiative to support relief efforts in Haiti. Customers will be able to donate EUR5 to UNICEF Ireland or Concern's Haiti Appeals by texting either UNICEF or CONCERN to 57500. The donation will automatically be deducted from the customer's account and directed in full to the customer's chosen charity. The text campaign appeal will run until midnight Sunday 31 January 2010 and is being facilitated by Puca.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 