Stories by Ellen Messmer

Likely insider hack taunts company executives

At the same time the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) was making a 10% employee layoff Thursday, the association's CEO e-mail was hacked and a hoax lay-off memo sent out that disparaged the organization as sexist and filled with overpaid "good 'ol boys."

Ellen Messmer | 20 Jan | Read more

Best Western downplays data breach

Best Western International Monday acknowledged it suffered a data breach that exposed sensitive customer information at a European hotel, but strongly disputes claims that an attacker gained access to 8 million customer records with credit-card numbers. Best Western insists no more than a dozen customer records were compromised.

Ellen Messmer | 27 Aug | Read more

Insider threat looms as San Francisco crisis plays out

The unfolding cliffhanger in San Francisco this week -- in which a city network administrator has been arrested for allegedly holding the network hostage -- represents an extreme example of the insider threat that IT security vendors and others have been sounding the alarm about for years.

Ellen Messmer | 17 Jul | Read more