That’s FSO as in Russia’s Federal Guard Service and not the Polish car manufacturer of the same initialism. Unidentified hackers broke into the email servers of the agency responsible, amongst other things, for Cheget, the country’s nuclear briefcase, and unofficially for the protection of top officials including the prime minister and president – the former, Vladimir Putin, supposedly using the service to spy on the latter, Dmitry Medvedev. The access details were subsequently distributed via online forums, allowing, for the several hours it took before authorities became aware of the security hole, anyone with the username and password to nose about in the website’s internal email monitoring system.
Although no important state information was apparently stored on the breached site, the hackers claimed they had entry details to the archives of SORM, an electronic eavesdropping system that permits the government to snoop on its citizens’ internet and telephone activity. Regardless, security experts believe the loophole existed because the system designers didn’t limit the servers to internal access, and, more importantly, because they maintained the default passwords.
How embarrassing for the FSO . . . .
