Sophos slams "irresponsible" whistleblowers

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 18 January 2007 11:46

Business IT - Security

Sophos security analyst Ron O'Brien has criticised the disclosure of information collected by a phishing scan aimed at MySpace users.

Instead of notifying the relevant organisations about the browser flaws being exploited and the phishing site, "The whistleblowers took their act a step further by publicly directing others to the stolen information online. By exposing the logins and passwords, thousands of innocent people, many of whom are young adults, are now at risk for identity theft or worse," according to a statement issued by Sophos.

"The delivery of the information surrounding the browser's flaws was irresponsible," said O'Brien. "By directing people to this information, not only have these individuals put people at risk for identity theft, but they have armed criminals and deviants with direct access to thousands of individuals, children and adults alike."

It appears as many as 60,000 users were directed to the phishing site, which was a replica of MySpace's login page.