Surfing Porn Sites = 2,200 SSNs “Exposed”

Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Now we know why companies don’t want you surfing the web at work. In this case the sites in question happened to be porn sites … and this led to the Oregon Department of Revenue worker’s PC being infected with a keylogging Trojan. And there you have it. 2,200 social security number’s were stolen.

The identities included Social Security numbers, names, and addresses, and were transmitted to an unknown hacker by the keylogger, said the Department of Revenue in an online FAQ. According to the DOR, its anti-malware filters didn’t pick up the Trojan because it was so new that anti-virus vendors hadn’t yet created detecting signatures.

No taxpayer financial data was lost to the keylogger, the DOR claimed. Source: TechWeb via Yahoo! News

We Say: Aha. This is why, on my computers, I use an anti-virus program with strong heuristics. I also use a secondary program designed to catch Trojans … and let me tell you, it’s saved me a couple of times with stuff my wife opened up. You can’t be too careful, and in this case, the employee wasn’t careful at all.