this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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New York Times warns freelancers of GitHub repo data breach (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
submitted 5 months ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
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  • The New York Times suffered a breach of its GitHub repositories in January 2024, leading to the theft and leak of sensitive personal information of freelancers.
  • Attackers accessed the repos using exposed credentials, but the breach did not impact the newspaper's internal systems or operations.
  • The stolen data, amounting to 273GB, was leaked on 4chan and included various personal details of contributors as well as information related to assignments and source code, including the viral Wordle game.
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[–] admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So... Unless Microsoft directly leaked those credentials, I don't see how it would be their responsibility.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

...because they didn't adequately protect them?

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It is not Microsoft's job to protect your password, it is yours.

Or did you assume it was GitHub itself that was compromised? The article doesn't say where the creds were obtained. My guess is plain old phishing. Though it could also be cred-stealing malware, that seems to be making a comeback, in the form of browser extensions and mobile apps. Either way, those aren't Microsoft's fault.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Or did you assume it was GitHub itself that was compromised?

That's the way it reads to me.

My guess is plain old phishing.

Going back to my previous comment, if it was obtained through fishing, there would be no need for "hacking".

[–] BURN@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

“Hacking” is a catch all term for security breaches, including phishing to the general public.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No it is not

[–] BURN@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yes it is. You can be a pedantic a-hole all you want, but “hacking” includes phishing, social engineering and pretty much any other form of access control circumvention to the general public.

Edit:

Also from the article itself

A 'readme' file in the archive states that the threat actor used an exposed GitHub token to access the company's repositories and steal the data.

Exposed GitHub token is very likely someone messed up and either exposed a token or was victim to an attack that could pull the token. Those are not uncommon and have happened to a lot of companies.