Cyber Attack in China Exposes 20 million Users

Alibaba, one of China’s biggest companies and owner of online auction site Taobao, have recently come under attack by hackers in which cyber attack in China exposes 20million users. The attack came from a group of hackers who have since been identified, and was caused by a breach of security in the Alibaba’s cloud computing service.

The hackers obtained a database of more than 99million usernames and passwords, and used the Alibaba cloud service to cross-reference them with Taobao accounts. Out of the 99million, almost 21million used the same email address and password combination, meaning the hackers had full access to these accounts. Luckily the hackers’ activity was noticed less than two weeks after the initial attack and Alibaba was able to send out messages to all its users to change their passwords, as well as reporting to police.

The hackers were able to fake buy items, a practice coined ‘brushing’, in order to raise seller’s feedback ratings, as well as selling accounts for fraudulent purposes. Unfortunately China are considerably behind the standards of online security compared to the US, and China are facing an even higher number of security breaches and hacks lately.

If you are concerned with online security and the protection of your own online activity, there are a number of steps you can take to strengthen your online presence. Firstly, as showcased in this hack, that it is near a good idea to have the same password for all online accounts. This of course is something most people are guilty of as it simply is far too difficult in coming up with a strong password for one account, let alone a unique one for all accounts online. Password managers can be very handy in securely creating and storing a number of passwords for all your accounts. This can be used across all platforms you use; tablet, laptop, phone etc and keep you protected.

Another way is to use a VPN service whenever you connect to the internet, no matter where you are in the world. Le VPN can be used on any laptop, smartphone, tablet or even smart TV, allowing your internet connection to be completely encrypted. This allows you to browse the internet anonymously as well as bypassing any censorship or restrictions imposed on your internet connection.

Sign up to Le VPN today and enjoy the true freedom of the internet, all the while staying safe and secure.