Major Online Security Breach at SFPUC?
CNET has broken the news of a potentially major online security breach at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission – the City of San Francisco’s water and power agency.
According to the breaking report the SFPUC recently became aware that a file holding names, account numbers and other personal information including phone numbers and addresses of customers was on a server that had been opened.
What SFPUC isn’t quite certain of is how viruses ended up on the server and if any customer information was stolen. An SFPUC spokesperson said that “it looked like someone had found an open port on the server and dumped a bunch of viruses on it.”
This breach is of somewhat grave concern, given the recent news of hackers at Sony and hackers stealing “personal Gmail passwords of hundreds of senior U.S. government officials.”
According to SFPUC, “there was no indication that any information was taken” and no Social Security numbers or bank information is even given to the SFPUC so there’s no risk there either. While this breach appears to be relatively minor compared to what it could have been, it must act as wake up call to City Hall to ensure that all cyber activity is as secure as possible.
This isn’t the first major breach of security in San Francisco city government. A few years ago a disgruntled employee locked the city out of it’s own computer system – and the passwords were only retrieved by the mayor who went on a daring jail visit to charm the employee out of the codes.
We will be following this story closely and bringing you updates.