Is it just me or is the amount of hack headlines increasing?  I keep reading about the threats of "evil twin" hotspots (actually, a quick search on Google News produced 135 results) and how it can allow hackers can clone an AP that behaves as part of an integral WLAN.  As more attacks become known, it seems like some hackers enjoy the extra notoriety, leaving their "signatures" on the sites knowing that their hacks will be publicized later.

Here are a few recent ones:

- T-Mobile: hackers penetrated their systems and read e-mails from an agent from the US Secret Service, among other company customers (400 total, including sensitive information such as their social security numbers.

- Gmail: sometimes, people discover vulnerabilities by accident, such as on this instance, when a Unix community group found a way to retrieve username and password information from Gmail users.

- Harvard University: some hacks do not even need to be sophisticated due to really lax security practices.  In this case, confidential drug purchase histories of Harvard students could be obtained by anyone knowing their student ID numbers. 

This reminds me of my days at Nortel, where I once worked on the Symposium Contact Center product.  All user manuals, training, etc. highlighted the fact that the default password to the product needed to be changed by the system administrator.  Then, I remember seeing an article that appeared on 2600, one of the most widely read hacker magazines.  I was amazed to discover the amount of system administrators who just never bother to follow those instructions (this was not Nortel's fault, of course, but pure carelessness by the sysops).  Of course, this poor practice could potentially expose their systems to hackers.