NortonLifeLock Warns That Hackers Breached Password Manager Accounts (bleepingcomputer.com) 23
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Gen Digital, formerly Symantec Corporation and NortonLifeLock, is sending data breach notifications to customers, informing them that hackers have successfully breached Norton Password Manager accounts in credential-stuffing attacks. According to a letter sample shared with the Office of the Vermont Attorney General, the attacks did not result from a breach on the company but from account compromise on other platforms. "Our own systems were not compromised. However, we strongly believe that an unauthorized third party knows and has utilized your username and password for your account," NortonLifeLock said. "This username and password combination may potentially also be known to others."
More specifically, the notice explains that around December 1, 2022, an attacker used username and password pairs they bought from the dark web to attempt to log in to Norton customer accounts. The firm detected "an unusually large volume" of failed login attempts on December 12, 2022, indicating credential stuffing attacks where threat actors try out credentials in bulk. By December 22, 2022, the company had completed its internal investigation, which revealed that the credential stuffing attacks had successfully compromised an undisclosed number of customer accounts: "In accessing your account with your username and password, the unauthorized third party may have viewed your first name, last name, phone number, and mailing address." For customers utilizing the Norton Password Manager feature, the notice warns that the attackers might have obtained details stored in the private vaults. Depending on what users store in their accounts, this could lead to the compromise of other online accounts, loss of digital assets, exposure of secrets, and more. Norton has reset passwords on impacted accounts and implemented additional measures to counter the malicious attempts. They're recommending customers enable two-factor authentication and take up the offer for a credit monitoring service.
More specifically, the notice explains that around December 1, 2022, an attacker used username and password pairs they bought from the dark web to attempt to log in to Norton customer accounts. The firm detected "an unusually large volume" of failed login attempts on December 12, 2022, indicating credential stuffing attacks where threat actors try out credentials in bulk. By December 22, 2022, the company had completed its internal investigation, which revealed that the credential stuffing attacks had successfully compromised an undisclosed number of customer accounts: "In accessing your account with your username and password, the unauthorized third party may have viewed your first name, last name, phone number, and mailing address." For customers utilizing the Norton Password Manager feature, the notice warns that the attackers might have obtained details stored in the private vaults. Depending on what users store in their accounts, this could lead to the compromise of other online accounts, loss of digital assets, exposure of secrets, and more. Norton has reset passwords on impacted accounts and implemented additional measures to counter the malicious attempts. They're recommending customers enable two-factor authentication and take up the offer for a credit monitoring service.
do people really use this shit? (Score:3)
Re: do people really use this shit? (Score:3)
Yes. Sysadmins too. 'Tis a shame.
Re:do people really use this shit? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. They advertise a lot on right wing AM radio. It's the same morons who buy My Pillow slippers and sheets.
Don't know why you got modded down - this is 100% true
Re: do people really use this shit? (Score:3)
Re: What PW manager is good then? (Score:2)
Re:What PW manager is good then? (Score:4, Informative)
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Even if it is index cards in your real life wallet. If it is protecting something important it is worth having to type it in.
Re:What PW manager is good then? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What PW manager is good then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Willie Sutton had it right: "I rob banks because that is where the money is."
What is more enticing to a hacker, a place with millions of passwords, or a place with only a few?
Keeping your passwords on your own machine is safer because you are not of great interest to hackers who are looking for passwords. It also helps if you don't call the file "passwords.txt".
Password reuse ??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Peter Norton -- decades later (Score:2)
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Just yesterday I was driving by an old Symantec building and thinking how kids today will never understand using Norton Utilities to repair your drive. They'll never understand that you'd use it to defrag your drive to so the computer would be faster and it was noticeable. It's also funny that most of us never backed up before doing that, which is scary. But we also didn't have our lives on computers in the same way we do now.
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Yeah, when you think back to the eighties and the ubiquitous Norton Utilities, unerase and commander, it's weird that they eventually morphed into stuff like this.
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Yes. And your private data will be stored in a basement at Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by classified document folders as a distraction. Perhaps he could scatter a few Matchbox cars Corvette models in a nod to bipartisan tomfoolery.
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Not the first time (Score:3)