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Audit: No customer data exposed in Kaspersky breach

Database security expert David Litchfield analyzes attack on security firm Web site and finds no sensitive data was accessed.

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
Elinor Mills

An independent audit of a data breach at security firm Kaspersky's U.S. Web site has confirmed that no customer data was exposed, Kaspersky said on Friday.

A Romanian hacker site used a SQL injection and cross-site scripting attack to get access to a database on a Web site of the Moscow-based Kaspersky and publicized the attack on Saturday.

Kaspersky announced on Monday that it would hire database security expert David Litchfield to analyze the breach.

In the report, Litchfield concludes that an attacker based in Romania used Google to search for Web servers owned by Kaspersky running applications that may be vulnerable to a SQL injection attack, launched an attack, and attempted to gain access to customer data, but failed.

"This caused a number of other attackers from various locations to probe the site further," the report said. "None of these follow-up attackers accessed any customer data either."

The report was delivered to Kaspersky on Thursday.

The same HackersBlog site also launched subsequent SLQ injection attacks on Web sites of two other security firms, BitDefender and F-Secure.