
Industry experts have rounded on the organisers of the World Economic Forum in Davos, blaming "stupidity" for the fact that a hacker accessed sensitive data on some of the Forum's high-profile attendees - including Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat.
Published: 5 March 2001 11:50 GMT
The attack - for which a suspect has been arrested - was apparently made easy by lax security and carelessness on the part of the organisers. The hacker copied private data about the Forum's participants onto a CD-ROM, which was sent to the media who verified the hack as genuine.
However, according to German newspaper Schweizer Wochenzeitung almost anybody could have gained access to the system.
Using a port scan, the culprit found an open port in the system. Having done so, password protection threw up no obstacle for the hacker as the default password - supplied with every Microsoft database - was still being used.
Rüdiger Dierstein, former security expert for DLR, said: "The whole thing is unbelievable. It's more than sloppiness, it's blatant stupidity. The person responsible should have been dismissed immediately."
By Irene Binal, reporter, silicon.de
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