Posted on 11/09/2014 11:48:07 PM PST by Swordmaker
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal published an in-depth look at The Home Depot’s recent security breach of its payment data systems, in which 56 million credit card accounts and 53 million email addresses of customers were compromised. A root cause of the security breach: a Windows vulnerability in the retailer’s main computer network.
“Once inside Home Depot’s systems after gaining credentials from the outside vendor, the hackers were able to jump the barriers between a peripheral third-party vendor system and the company’s more secure main computer network by exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system, the people briefed on the investigation said,” writes the WSJ’s Shelly Banjo.
The report claims that while Microsoft did issue a security patch after the breach began, which was installed by The Home Depot, the fix arrived too late. According to sources familiar with the investigation, the hackers already had the ability to move across The Home Depot’s systems, including its point-of-sale system, as if they were high-level employees.
The report unravels a lot of details related to how the security breach played out, with one anecdote that I found particularly interesting. Following the breach, an IT employee allegedly purchased two dozen new MacBooks and iPhones for senior executives at The Home Depot, indicating that the home-improvement retailer may have lost at least some confidence in its Microsoft-based systems.
MacBooks and iPhones have faced their fair share of security vulnerabilities (see below—Swordmaker) over the past few years, although recent studies conducted by Kaspersky Labs and similar firms have proven that both devices remain highly secure platforms in terms of protection against malware and other threats. But whether shiny new Macs and iPhones in The Home Depot’s boardroom will help it prevent another massive security breach remains to be seen.
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I hope Mcrosoft takes a serious hit because their founder is a proven Communist who aligns himself with those that want to indoctrinate your children into Islam, take away your guns, increase the ost of energy and other stupid nonsense. Gates is one guy I woukdn’t mind seeing going from rags to riches and gutter level rags again...
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
Microsoft could go belly up and it wouldn't affect Gates much. He's already got his.
I have been in Home Depot very recently and have seen their CRT monitors and dot matrix printers on their counters. I’m pretty sure they were not investing much to keep current. I’m not a computer guy but they are not even in the last decade with their hardware so maybe their software isn’t the main culprit.
I don’t know why “senior executives” need data access to financial databases (point of sales, not sales figures).
Seems like more of an excuse and then using Microsoft and Apple as foils.
Fact is that any system has vulnerabilities, even the military systems are constantly compromised.
Having an Apple as the layer one device isn’t going to mitigate against the OSI model devices from being attacked.
I prefer Lowes but last time I shopped at HD, which was several years ago, the special ordering was done on an HPUX system.
I seriously doubt MS will do much. Security, or lack there of, has been a known problem for many many years. Its spawned an entire industry to mitigate it. MS, however, has put little more than lip service into correcting it at the source.
Dude...what? Apple layer one device...? OSI model devices...?
I hate to be pedantic, but you’re talking computer mumbo-jumbo like a n00b.
LoL!
Simply pathetic how you Apple guys have to dance to cover for your rainbow flag waving CEO hero.
FYI Gates doesn’t run Microsoft, and hasn’t in years.
#2 Blaming MS for this security breach is absurd. And giving these people Macs won’t make up for these people’s stupidity. But I suppose it makes for classic swordmaker propaganda.
What exactly is he saying that's wrong? Using Apple hardware (Layer 1), isn't going to change anything if your OSI Model devices(Your communication system/model, which includes switches, routers, gateways, "people" or anything that interacts with your secure hardware, etc.) is subject to compromise.
In other words, you can have the most secure bank vault in the world, but if the guy that carries stuff into and out of the bank vault is a thief, it's not going to make any difference.
No doubt if more Mac’s were in the workplace, more resources would be used to hack them and more exploits would occur.
I don’t know where or how these exec’s got infected but if these yoyo’s had the discipline to use their business laptop for business this wouldn’t have happened.
Not exactly. That’s why I said I hate to be pedantic.
This might help clarify a bit. You can’t simply call any “hardware” an OSI model Layer 1 device. There is a full stack in any iphone or android device, and not neccessarily a full stack in many network devices.
Not sure how this thread turned into Apple vs. Microsoft nonsense...
... but Home Depot (or this article) is BSing. The plain fact, as reported by nearly every tech site I can think of, is that they *elected* to stay with an old version of embedded Windows despite being warned repeatedly of the risk. In short, Home Depot weighed our financial integrity vs. the cost to upgrade, and decided poorly.
Let's give a hearty welcome to our thread's Microsoft apologist and defender:
They don’t “need” to, they want to because of the Executive Power trip or rush from having CONTROL!
Might be for security or it might be that Home Depot wants to reward the guy whose greatest gift from God is that he’s a homo...
I don’t have to apologize for anyone.
But you Apple guys on FR will have to work like hell to keep covering for that company.
Hopefully Alabama will become more friendly to LGBTQs like Cook so hope. Won’t that make you guys feel so good?
But you Apple guys on FR will have to work like hell to keep covering for that company.
Hopefully Alabama will become more friendly to LGBTQs like Cook so hope. Won’t that make you guys feel so good?
Trying to figure out how tech competence = anything to do with sexuality. One suspects that you have issues with the latter...
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