Google Translate says the French word for pwned is pwned, which is no fun at all. Let's say instead French President Nicolas Sarkozy's cybersecurity gets a big red l'échec épique (epic fail). Le président's bank account was hacked.
Sarkozy Gets Pwned
Identity thieves are reported to have withdrawn small sums from a bank account Sarkozy used for opening mobile phone accounts. It is thought the hackers were unaware of whose account they were tapping, and had only primed it (tested it by seeing if small sums could be taken out with the victim noticing) before Sarkozy reported the incident in September.
That's when the crooks' days got pretty bad, one imagines, as every Inspector Clouseau in France is on the case. One imagines the system works similarly to how it does in the States: Steal from somebody that matters and they will find you, especially the student loan people.
Just sayin', Joe the Plumber would be SOL but mess with heads of state or L. Ron Hubbard nuts and your days are numbered.
The leading theory about how identity thieves got hold of Sarkozy's information says they could have obtained via a hacked credit card reader during one of Sarkozy's trips abroad. Perhaps it happened, as Francois Paget mentions, during a visit to the French embassy in Libya.
Another security expert, Sophos' Graham Cluley, uses the Sarkozy example as an excuse to remind us that no one is immune. "The French President is the latest political figure to fall victim to hackers - last month we reported that Sarah Palin's email account had been compromised, while Barack Obama was the subject of a malicious spam campaign," said Cluley.
"What's interesting is how the cyber crooks managed to steal the password to access what should have been a secure account. This latest incident highlights the fact that no-one is safe and that everyone should take the necessary precautions to avoid ending up in the same boat as Sarkozy and so many others."
Sophos also provides a video, which should be watched, if for nothing else, the hilarious rudimentary French display. Le fromage grand de France? Really, Sophos?
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