On Saturday, May 9, 2015 a bomb went off at a busy intersection of the affluent Atlanta suburb of Buckhead. Nobody was killed or physically injured, so you probably didn’t read or hear about it with your Sunday morning coffee. But both the FBI and Homeland Security are investigating the incident. The “bomb” has come to be known as the “Buckhead Billboard Bomb.” The incident reflects the ever-growing need for businesses large and small to pay attention to data security.
The Buckhead Billboard Bomb resulted when a hactivist group calling itself Assange Shuffle Collective accessed a web-connected digital billboard to display an obscene pornographic image to passers-by at the intersection of Peachtree and East Paces Ferry roads. The software running the billboard had no system security in place and, worse yet, a cyber-security expert had warned the company it was vulnerable. The billboard company responded “not interested…” to the expert’s offer to assist.
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