Life is hard enough for civilians trying to find a date, but now members of the armed forces have even more to worry about, as reports have emerged that a well-known military dating site was hacked recently.
A new report released by an information security firm recently highlighted the recent website attack, where hackers found their way inside the MiltarySingles.com database, making off with the personal details of more than 170,000 members of the armed forces. As if worrying about putting yourself in harm’s way for your country wasn’t enough of a source of stress, now members of the military looking for love and companionship have to fret about identity theft as well!
The attack came last March, according to the report, raising concerns over the security of social media sites and how well protected the personal details of military personnel truly are. Imperva, the security firm releasing the report, found that while PHP-based applications, user-generated content, and social networking are ubiquitous on the internet, there are serious security issues raised by using this sort of technology.
Imperva’s CTO, Amichai Shulman, said that there may be a need to implement special policies in regards to social networking when it comes to military and government personnel, especially in light of the military dating site’s successful hacking. There needs to be better safeguards put in place to prevent the personal information of official personnel from being manipulated and accessed, Shulman added.
One relatively easy way to shore up security and prevent breaches in the future would be to encrypt user passwords better, Impreva said, after learning that the wide majority of the website’s passwords were cracked in less than ten hours.
