Social Search Reveals 700 Comcast Customer Logins

When educational technology specialist Kevin Andreyo recently read a report on people search engines, he decided to conduct a little 'people search' on himself.

Andreyo did not expect to find much -- so, imagine the surprise when he uncovered the user name and password to his Comcast Internet account, put out there for the entire online world to see.

In addition to his personal information, Andreyo also discovered a list that exposed the user names and passwords of (what he believed) to be 8,000 other Comcast customers. Andreyo immediately contacted both Comcast and the FBI, hoping to find the ones responsible for divulging such personal information to the public.

Comcast Denies Allegations

While the most logical explanation would be that Comcast was the one responsible for the security breach, the company has vehemently denied any allegations to suggest they were to blame for the information leak.

Rather, Comcast believes that the situation was the result of a phishing or malware-oriented attack perpetuated by an external, third-party source. (Source: networkworld.com)

Realizing that speculation doesn't solve crimes, the Internet Service Provider has promised to figure out how such heavily encrypted information could have been assembled and released.

Less Affected Than Initially Feared

The company also attempted to downplay the severity of the situation, claiming that the number of affected users was far less than had been initially feared.

The majority of the user names that appeared on the list are believed to be either duplicated or old (and therefore, inactive) accounts. Only about 700 of the 8,000 user names that appeared on the list are actually authentic and unique.

Still, the most important thing on Comcast's agenda is to reach out to all those people whose personal information was exposed to the public, offering their support and apologies for the entire ordeal.

While the list is no longer available online, analysts fear that the document still lives on in various cache and online history services.

Comcast promises to be on high-alert, just in case the list decides to resurface again in the future. (Source: yahoo.com)