http://www.msnbc.com/news/445991.asp

Verizon site exposed customer data Self-help Web page revealed addresses, phone numbers

By Bob Sullivan

MSNBC

Aug. 14  Already suffering pressure from an ongoing customer service worker strike, Verizon Communications had to remove a customer service self-help Web site on Sunday because it exposed some customers private information.

SecurityFocus.com report of the Verizon security flaw

The company released a new application last week that encouraged customers to troubleshoot their own problems. But a private researcher discovered he could enter other customers phone numbers into the application and gain access to personal data about them. The security hole was first reported by SecurityFocus.com early Monday morning.

A Verizon spokesman said few, if any, records were compromised and that the actual exposed information was minimal. Name and address information linked to phone numbers was exposed, for example, but that information is publicly available on many Web sites.

The only thing that was really exposed ... if you entered a number for a non-listed account, you could get the name and address back, said Frank Bennett, who oversaw developed of the application. And then only one at a time. He said there was no evidence that a malicious user accessed multiple records using this technique  the self-help application has gotten only a few hundred hits per day since its launch.

The company said the application was not published because of pressure from the striking customer service and telephone repair workers, which is in its second week now. Consumers from Maine to Virginia are struggling with delays in telephone repair and installations.

We had developed this application for large business customers to use and six months ago concluded we could make a stripped down version of it for consumers, Bennett said. We had planned to launch it last weekend...but it has helped with the strike.

The application in question allows customers to run a phone line check by themselves, through a Web browser. Company spokesman Larry Plumb said that involved connecting Internet users to a company database that until last week was intended for internal use only.

================================================================ Comment: As if I didn't have enough to worry about...

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), August 21, 2000

Answers

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

many computers, so little time?

xoxo, sumer

ps dont worry k, i got yer back :-)

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 21, 2000.

I know that you do, 'sumer, and that throught gives me great comfort (no sarcasm meant!)

I miss the state fair already (it ended yesterday).

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), August 21, 2000.

How were those elephant ears?

-- Oxy (Oxsys@aol.com), August 21, 2000.

Greasy! 8-)

I'm getting too old for carny food, but as long as my stomach will settle down within 48 hours, I'll eat my yearly elephant ear on the opening day of the fair. Maybe some year soon, I'll make it an ear of grilled corn, instead.

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), August 21, 2000.

Go easy on them fair's Kb, the Medina County Fair left alot of people with e-coli sickness.

xoxo,sumer who prefers the funnel cakes ahhhhh chlorestorol madness (sp)

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 21, 2000.

I know. I know. I generally behave myself -- keep my hands washed, stay away from the food wagons. There's just something truly special about walkin' down the midway at the Ohio State Fair with that greasy elephant ear in one hand and a cold can of Dew in the other. It's a rite of August, the first farewell to summer. The second is going fishing after the Labor Day crowd disappears, if I EVER get my week off. If not, I will go skinny dipping in Lake Erie. (And if that doesn't scare out all of the e. coli, nothing will!)

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), August 21, 2000.

Kb: can u believe ALL my life w/exception of 'few' military years I've lived in Cleveland area and have NEVER been to the ohio state fair? Am I a traitor of worst degree or what?

One day, I WILL I promise......hmmm,maybe me will take grandson....him would like funnel cakes and eley ears... :-)

BTW, I 'get' the baby for the weekend....yessssssssssssssssss!!!!

sumer who is so intensly excited!!!

xoxo,sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 21, 2000.

'sumer, part of what makes the fair interesting for me is that a ton of my shirt-tail relatives own farms in the area, and I see their names or the names of their children as I walk though the various displays in the ag building or watch the livestock judging. It's a little like a three-week family reunion.

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), August 22, 2000.

K: WELL that SETTLES it, I'm THERE next year, w/grandson in tow.....

xoxo,sumer

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), August 22, 2000.

Cool! Bring the whole family along. Maybe my raise will come through by then, and I'll buy y'all ice cream at the dairy barn.

-- (kb8um8@yahho.com), August 22, 2000.