Weekly Update 425

This was a much longer than usual update, largely due to the amount of time spent discussing the Earth 2 incident. As I said in the video (many times!), the amount of attention this has garnered from both Earth 2 users and the company itself is incommensurate with the impact of the incident itself. It’s a nothing-burger. Email addresses and usernames, that’s it, and of course, their association with the service, which may lead to some very targeted spam or phishing attempts. It’s still a breach by any reasonable definition of the term, but it should have been succinctly summarised and disclosed to impacted parties with everyone moving on with more important things in life a few moments later. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do right now 😊

References

1. Sponsored by: Report URI: Guarding you from rogue JavaScript! Don’t get pwned; get real-time alerts & prevent breaches #SecureYourSite
2. Speaking of giving a nothing-burger incident more attention than it deserves, the Earth 2 Twitter screed hasn’t done them any favours (something something Streisand effect)
3. Data breach disclosure 101: How to succeed after you’ve failed (7 years on, this is still the guidance I give breached orgs)