Enterprise Security:
Much More Than A Virus

While a 17-year-old Massachusetts boy was finally tracked down and arrested for illegally accessing the socialite princess's cell phone account, the damage was already done. Hundreds of high-profile celebrities, including Christina Aguilera, Anna Kournikova, Ashlee Simpson, Vin Diesel and even Avril Lavigne in Ontario, Canada, had to scramble for cover as their private phones and answering machines were flooded with calls from all over the world. New York society figure Victoria Gotti reported over 100 calls within two hours shortly after Hilton's contacts were leaked to the Internet public.

Hilton had been using the Sidekick II, a multi-purpose personal electronic device that uses an online server to store some contact information, including phone numbers. Reportedly, the mistake was that the actress and heiress persisted in using her little Chihuahua dog's name (which was widely known) to secure her password at the service provider's site. Like many other websites, the service provider requires users to answer a "secret question" if they forget their passwords. For Hilton's account, the secret question was "What is your favourite pet's name?" By correctly providing the answer, any online user could change Hilton's password and freely access her account.

While many just consider the incident to be an amusing anecdote of how the notorious socialite can't seem to keep anything online private, security experts look upon it as something more insidious and dangerous — one of the first cases of mobile device hacking. While the breach was simple, the consequences were far-ranging and widespread, causing harm down the entire mobile network.

And that's only the beginning of a new trend in information security.

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