The servers which were hacked contained passwords, email content, and security questions. Later on, the hackers who stole the data from the company put it on the dark web for sale this year.
It gets interesting
To make things interesting, hackers who stole the data said they would give the company a chance to patch their holes by paying a small bounty.
However, the company did not negotiate with the hackers and reported the incident to Italian postal police authorities. The exact amount of bounty was never revealed to the public.
Due to the failed negotiations with the company, hackers listed the data and put it on sale on the dark web. They said that the stolen data was extracted from 46 databases with sensitive information of 600,000 users. The hackers put a price of 0.5 to 3 bitcoin per file, which transfers between $3500 and $2200.
The company officials said that there was no financial information stored at the servers. They said that the attack only affected the server, which had administrative data, such as billing addresses. The company also said that they had paid their subscribers who were or were not affected by the attack. Fortunately, the company has also patched its servers.
It is nothing new
The Italian attack is just like the past Massive Email Server Attack, which happened a year ago at VFEmail. In that attack, the hackers erased all the data from the U.S. servers containing both primary and backup information. It led the company to announce that they had suffered a great disaster by the hands of hackers.
Specialists of cybersecurity advice the consumers and victims of significant email hacks to take the following precautions:
-
Run a deep scan on the hard drive and delete any reported malware
-
Change the passwords of sensitive accounts regularly
-
Contact online services like credit card companies, banks, entertainment accounts, etc. to validate the financial activity
-
Inform a friend or a family member whose information can be taken from the hacker’s attack
-
Change security questions and answers