Hackers breach Evernote

Gary · Mar 03, 2013, 09:18:18

Online information storage firm Evernote has asked all users to reset their passwords, following a security breach by hackers.

The California-based company, that allows people to store and organise personal data on an external server, is thought to have about 50 million users.

It said user names, email addresses and encrypted passwords were accessed.

Love me some secure cloud tech I do...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21644317

Niall · Mar 03, 2013, 12:05:09

It's always baffled me why people would risk using these services when it's much safer spending £25 on an external drive.

Gary · Mar 03, 2013, 12:27:55

Quote from: Niall on Mar 03, 2013, 12:05:09
It's always baffled me why people would risk using these services when it's much safer spending £25 on an external drive.

Probably because you can share fast and easily with colleagues etc rather than running a NAS and also you can access from pretty much any device, great in theory but like anything bound to get hacked, but then again you could get hit by a java or flash exploit and have your info hacked at home too. $:-\$ Skydrive has proved very popular on the MS front for storing and instantly sharing info with people too. And its generally more reliable than buggy router firmware and hard drives connected to them.

Niall · Mar 03, 2013, 14:34:48

Personally if I was running a business and needed to share info, I'd have a secure network to do it on, with no outside access. It just seems ludicrous to me that people would even bother risking it in any other way. Sure you'll get normal public using these things, but I wouldn't even then. There's always the risk of your info being stolen or accessed and having a virus attached to it if you use these 'cloud' based storage 'solutions'.

As soon as they announced this new marvel

I knew that it was just making targets for information, and the cynic in me felt that it could also be a way for suspect agencies to gather information on people much easier.

pctech · Mar 03, 2013, 17:36:52

The key selling point for cloud tech is that the costs are predictable and controllable. so you just pay a fixed fee for the capacity required rather than having outlay for servers, networking gear and storage and building the required accommodation with power and cooling plant (capital expenditure)

It also supposedly does away with expenses such as power for the machines and cooling plant and IT staff to look after it all (operating expenses)

This appeals greatly to the beancounters which is the aim as these people don't know the first thing about how the stuff works when its in house and how it is secured.

Hosting a website or ecommerce site externally is one thing but if you virtualise all your company's systems and put your trust in a third party along with other companies it creates one massive honeypot which will be targeted by hackers as if breached it is easy money for them.

The stupid UK Government has been swept up in the hype too and I fear that not too long from now we might all be facing such a problem.

http://gcloud.civilservice.gov.uk/

Lance · Mar 03, 2013, 18:26:51

As a so called beancounter myself, you don't realise just how wrong you are Mitch about the profession.

pctech · Mar 03, 2013, 18:36:15

Hi Lance

No offence meant mate and I'd count you as an exception anyway.

Let's just say the ones I have encountered don't have a clue and just ask 'how much?' and 'how can we do it cheaper?'

Technical Ben · Mar 03, 2013, 22:23:15

Yeah, it's probably not the "beancounters" but the "share holder focused profit driven beancounters". It's those who care about the share price today, and all to the wind tomorrow. See Facebook IPO as an example. Or some of the jobs I've been in, where the company would sell it's chairs and tables to turn "profit" on paper, and sell at a higher price. The sucker who bought them then found out it was not operating profit, but just a sudden increase in cash or liquid assets was from selling off some capitol (correct me on those terms, I'm not 100% on them

). Point of the matter was, they had nothing left to actually run the business with, but a nice sized "balance" on paper.

Outsourcing costs less in the short term, more in the long term (see RBS outsourcing their tech, cost them less in the short term, then how much when it went down for 2 months?).