Hackers Find Customers in Brand Names

I was browsing Digg.com, which has become my favorite spot to find news and information, and found this article about a company in Australia that had it's PABX phone system hacked, racking up AU$9,000 in a week. PABX stands for Private Automatic Branch Exchange, which is a fancy way of saying automated switch board.

Within the article is another one about malicious code on the Samsung website that reads keystrokes, attemps to disable anti-virus software and steal online banking codes of the unsuspected. And who are the unsuspected? Frequent visitors to the Samsung website who have trust in the brand name.

Joel Camissar, Australian country manager for Websense, maded an interesting point:

"Why not hack into a site that people are visiting that is a trusted brand? Trust is so important these days. People are being preached to by banks not to trust links [in unsolicited emails] -- that is something people are starting to follow. So if one does go to a site that is trusted, it is certainly a very easy way for hackers to compromise users."

Seems like hackers are taking a page out of the marketing play book. Brand names sell, brand names come with a pre-determined trust package, just like YouTube came with a pre-determined audience.

Wonder if companies will be far more protective of their brand behind the scenes than they are in public, knowing that hackers get it.