May 30, 2001 : Excite@Home Works With Helpful Hacker

📅 May 30, 2001 - In an occurrence not entirely in keeping with the traditional relationship between giant Internet corporations and hackers, a hostile one, for the unaware, Excite@Home recently finished patching up its defenses in response to the advice of a hacker who pointed out a vulnerability in April.

The hacker, working under the alias Adrien Lamo, found a hole that allowed him access to the company's internal network and almost 3 million support records. Excite@Home applauded Lamo for coming forward after accessing the company's network.
Nearly two months ago, Lamo contacted the company after discovering a server that could be used maliciously to get into areas of Excite@Home's corporate network. The company says the breach allowed access to a customer support database of users, including their machine configurations and their addresses. But it stressed that no credit card information was in the database, and that, thanks to Lamo's assistance, none of the records were accessed by others.
The breach was first detected by Lamo in March, and first reported by security Web site SecurityFocus.com, which the hacker had contacted.
Excite@Home called Lamo someone who tries to uncover security holes with good intentions, pointing them out to the company so they could be fixed.
And while this is not the first instance of such collaboration, it is rare for companies to cooperate with hackers. Although many hackers consider themselves simply unconventional researchers, corporations are usually not eager to associate with people who consider themselves hackers.
But the cooperation has certainly benefited Excite@Home. The company says that after meeting with Lamo, it further secured its network, installing firewalls, restricting access to the network, implementing programs to prevent denial-of-service attacks and adding security hardware and software.