The Panama Papers breach is the biggest high-profile information leak of the history ever. The corporate service providing firm, Mossack Fonseca has faced this controversy recently when all the secured information from their database, of their high-profile clients, was leaked to journalists.
WHAT IS THE PANAMA PAPERS?
The Panama Papers are leaked set of 11.5 million highly confidential documents that has detailed information regarding 214000 offshore companies listed by a corporate service provider, Mossack Fonseca, head-quartered in Panama. These documents also enlist the identities of directors and shareholders of the company. These documents also show how wealthy individuals including government leaders and public officials hid and manage their wealth and assets from public scrutiny.
Apparently it is one of the biggest leak of documents ever. As reported by Forbes, the documents are as big as it takes 2.6 terabytes of space in computer storage. The data was provided to a renowned German-newspaper ‘Suddeutsche Zeitung’ by anonymous source. The data consisted of photos, emails and other documents that was taken from the internal database of Mossack Fonseca. During the investigation by journalists, it was found some shell companies may have been used for illegal tasks that includes drug trafficking, fraud and tax evasion.
First leak we heard was Wiki leak.
Another big leak was information shared by Edward Snowden.
Now, the Panama paper breaching, is the biggest leak in the history.
On this leak, some cyber security firms are blaming the outdated WordPress website of the firm Mossack Fonseca. With no doubt, WordPress is the best platform available for small to medium business websites. Yes WordPress is the best for business website construction, but maintaining the website with regular plugin updates is the important feature to be understood.
So are you and your WordPress website is also at the risk of data breach?
No, not every website is at risk unless you guard your websites by updating it regularly with available secure functionalities.
HOW THIS MASSIVE LEAK HAPPENED?
As per the analysis from WordFence, the majority of documents and data was acquired by exploiting the weak features of outdated WordPress website of Mossack Fonseca. Their site was having a plugin called Revolution Slider, which is a popular and powerful design tool for WordPress. But this functionality also added some vulnerability to the site. Unfortunately, the website was not updated with the plugin update released as a later version. This allowed hackers to exploit this old plugin and once the hackers are in it is impossible to save anything.
According to WordFence, the Mossack Fonseca’s customer portal, where loads of customer data was stored and got leaked, was still working on a long outdated Drupal version. This version was reported to has atleast 25 vulnerabilities.
Every plugin comes with vulnerability. A perfect plugin cannot be coded at once, so developers release regular software updates for plugins that removes the risk website vulnerability.
HOW SHOULD I SAVE MY WORDPRESS WEBSITE FROM HACKING?
Cyber criminals are omnipresent and keep looking for opportunities to hack the websites. So once the website is created, one also needs to pay attention to the website and one needs to update it with plugins on regular basis.
Thus developers also need to respond fast as criminals and hackers move quickly. And it is our responsibility to look after the maintenance of our own website. If an update has been released by developer, with security features, it implies that someone has figured out the way to breach in. so it is important to update the website regularly to avoid such leakage and breaching of data in future.
Krify suggests that reconstructing/redesigning the website or maintaining the website with regular updates is essential for data security.
Krify is a multinational mobile app, website and wearable app development company. We focus on delivering robust and secure mobile app and website development solutions. We are a leading mobile and web app developers and also serves to the clients with website redesigning and maintenance services. Contact us now for secure software and IT solutions for your business.
