By ADuch -

2011 was a record breaking year for data breaches. Will 2012 be the same? If companies do not tighten up their security, it may just be.

In recent news, another popular website fell victim to a cyber-attack.  Zappos.com, an online shoe and clothing retailer, was hacked by an unknown criminal who was able to tap into their internal network/systems through one of the company’s servers in Kentucky. So what exactly was stolen?

According to Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, the unknown criminal genius was able to nab customer names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, the last four digits on their credit card number, and a “cryptographically scrambled” version of their website password. In response to this, Zappos immediately emailed its 24 million customers explaining the situation at hand. They also advised their customers to reset their current Zappos passwords and to change their passwords on any other website that uses the same email address.

At this moment, Zappos does not know when they were attacked. Nor do they know how long the attacker had access to their internal networks. What they do know is that they will be temporarily closing their phone lines and answering all questions through email.

Although this was not a heavy breach, the attack still hurts the company. It disrupts the company’s activity, performance, and it ultimately affects their customers.

For more on the attack on Zappos, click here.

By Erik Small -

[poll id="5"]