October 24, 2007: Scary but true. Credit card information hacked and leaked into Google Search.

Here's an interesting situation.  A hacker manages to steal credit card information from various sources on the Internet.  However, he places this information online in the format of the text file.  Google ends up indexing all the names, credit card numbers, their addresses, etc. and can be fully searched by anyone who uses Google. Alister, a blogger, lands on this text file and uncovered a huge list of people’s names, addresses and credit card details online.  He has put a blog posting that talks about his findings and recommends that each person search for their name, credit card number, etc. to ensure that it is not listed on Google.  To prevent your information being hacked, the following points have been highlighted on his post:

Buy online from large, reputable suppliers only.
Ideally, choose vendors in the same “jurisdiction” as you, and vendors who also sell to you offline.

Don’t buy from ugly sites.
If the site looks really ugly and clunky on the front end, it might be coded that way on the back end too. Just walk away!

Use Paypal where you can.
It’s an eBay company and gives you a safety net for online transactions. They spend millions getting it right.

Update your passwords.
You should use really good passwords, and unique ones, for your important online services like banks, hosting suppliers, government, etc. Don’t double up on them.

Buy from countries you trust.
If sounds snobbish, but if you get in trouble with a vendor who doesn’t deliver, and he’s from a country that can’t protect you in law, you’re up the creek without a strudel.

Know about phishing.
You think you know what it means, but are you up-to-date on the latest tricks and techniques? Some of them are darned convincing. So use filters and software to help you too. 

For more information and to read more about his posting, please click here >>