IT Security Stories to Watch: Ashley Madison's CEO Steps Down

Ashley Madison’s CEO resigned last week after hackers illegally accessed his company’s computer systems and released data and emails attached to more than 30 million accounts.

And as a result, Ashley Madison tops this week’s list of IT security newsmakers, followed by Web.com, Thomson and Cyphort.

What can managed service providers (MSPs) and their customers learn from these IT security newsmakers? Check out this week’s list of IT security stories to watch to find out:

1. Ashley Madison CEO leaves company after data breach

Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison, announced the departure of CEO Noel Biderman. The news comes after Ashley Madison suffered a data breach last month.

“This change is in the best interest of the company and allows us to continue to provide support to our members and dedicated employees,” Avid Life Media said in a prepared statement. “We are actively adjusting to the attack on our business and members’ privacy by criminals.”

The company also said it is working with international law enforcement “to bring those responsible for the theft of proprietary member and business information to justice.”

2. Web.com gets breached

Web.com last week said it discovered a data breach that occurred earlier this month. The web services company pointed out that 93,000 customers may have been affected by the incident.

Customer credit card numbers, names and addresses were compromised during the data breach, according to LowCards.com. However, Web.com has notified those who may have been affected and is offering them one free year of credit monitoring services.

In addition, Web.com has informed law enforcement agencies about the incident, and a criminal investigation is ongoing.

3. Thomson identifies data breach

British travel company Thomson said home addresses, telephone numbers and flight dates of customers recently were leaked.

BBC reported that the personal information of 458 customers was shared as part of the incident.

“We are aware of an email that was sent in error, which shared a small number of customers’ information,” Thomson said in a prepared statement. “The error was identified very quickly and the email was recalled, which was successful in a significant number of cases.”

4. Malvertising more than triples over the past year

Advanced threat defense (ATD) solutions provider Cyphort found that malvertising campaigns carried out by hackers increased 325 percent in the past year.

Cyphort also predicted that the number of malvertising attacks is likely to increase throughout 2015 and into 2016.

“Cybercriminals always look for the least point of resistance when attacking networks, making malvertising campaigns an enticing way for them to commit fraud and steal proprietary information from unsuspecting corporations,” Cyphort co-founder Dr. Fengmin Gong said in a prepared statement.

What are your thoughts on this week’s IT security stories to watch? Share your thoughts about this story in the Comments section below, via Twitter @dkobialka or email me at [email protected].