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Equipped with automated tools that ping multiple banks with the purloined username and password, hackers can quickly search for matches, then when one is found, rapidly empty a bank account by wiring funds to their own overseas accounts. "If I can compromise email I can get to almost any service." "Because email is used to reset passwords at banks, usernames and passwords are a treasure trove," said Pingree. Armed with the Adobe usernames and passwords - the company explicitly said only the latter were encrypted - hackers could either sell those to others or exploit them themselves if they managed to decrypt the passwords.
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His bet rested on the practice of many users to recycle passwords and even usernames for multiple accounts, including Web email. Pingree speculated that the probable motivation for breaching Adobe's network was to pilfer account usernames and passwords, not credit cards.
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Hackers usually don't know for sure where they'll find data." "I think they were literally fishing for data and stumbled upon the credit cards. "The likely aspiration here was more about the fact that Adobe has long been a target, and its products have been very heavily attacked," said Lawrence Pingree of Gartner. Other experts were skeptical that the cyber criminals targeted Adobe for its credit card treasure chest. 3, the same day it revealed the network break-in, the company acknowledged the breach but said, "At this time, we do not believe that the attacks will have a material adverse impact on our business or financial results." Not surprisingly, the company also included a caveat, adding, "It is possible, nevertheless, that this incident could have various adverse effects on us."
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"This will cost them $100 per user," said Pescatore, which would mean an expense of almost $300 million.Īdobe disagreed.
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Also in September, Microsoft said its Office 365 Home Premium - the version aimed at consumers that requires handing Microsoft a credit card - had 2 million subscribers, up 100% from a touted 1 million in May.Īnd the breach will cost Adobe millions in notification and protection costs, as it's promised to reach out to affected customers and provide them with a free year of credit monitoring. Last month, Adobe said Creative Cloud had 1.03 million subscribers, well on the way toward an end-of-year target of 1.25 million. SaaS numbers - of subs and thus credit cards - have grown significantly at both Adobe and Microsoft, to use two examples. Microsoft, for example, is working hard to convince customers to adopt its Office 365 subscription service.
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fraud protection firm, in an email about the Adobe breach.Īdobe isn't the only software maker that's trying to migrate from packaged software sold as with a perpetual license to rental-like subscriptions that must be paid regularly. "The stolen credit card numbers alone could be worth up to $30 million on the black market," said Rajesh Ramanand, the CEO of Signifyd, a Santa Clara, Calif. The provider stores that card information so it can charge the customer without sending a traditional bill, and most importantly, waiting for payment.Īnd those credit cards are valuable to hackers. Like all software-as-a-service (SaaS), Creative Cloud relies on recurring payments - monthly or annually - which for most customers, means providing a credit card.
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