A threat actor has played a bad trick on the IT team and many of the customers of a popular shoe company. According to ethical hacking specialists, a hacker, self-appointed as “Nathan”, infiltrated the computer systems of the company TOMS Shoes, gaining access to their email list. Once there, the hacker began sending emails with a strange message to TOMS’ newsletter members.
According to some of the users who received
this email, the hacker decided to send a little tip to users, which said:
“hey you, don’t look at a digital screen all day, there’s a world out
there that you’re missing out on”.
Shortly after the emails were sent, users began
posting screenshots of the hacker’s message on their social media profiles,
mainly Twitter. Eventually the users themselves began to attribute this message
to an intrusion on TOMS systems: “Apparently someone hacked the TOMS mail
list; times are so hard that even hackers advise you to take things easy,”
the Twitter user @AlishaRai said.
Other users questioned the authenticity of the
hacking incident, thinking that everything could be a publicity stunt.
“TOMS was attacked or his marketing team is getting creative?” posted
the user @FunnelFiasco. Even some users less concerned about ethical hacking
issues, thanked the hacker for reminding them of the important things in life:
“If my personal information was stolen, at least it was a nice guy,”
the user @mmmaldoy said.
However, the hacking incident was completely
real. The specialized platform Motherboard managed to contact
“Nathan”, who claims managed to hack the TOMS mail list relatively
easily, although he has already ensured that he had no bad intentions, as he
only made this intrusion for fun. “I just wanted to have fun and send a
positive message. The truth is that there is nothing useful in hacking a company
like TOMS”, said the hacker.
Finally, through a Twitter
account, Nathan stated that although he has access to some personal data, he
does not intend to misuse this information, although he suggests that he is not
the only one able to access this data: “I can only speak for myself; I
don’t know if any other hackers have infiltrated TOMS’s systems,” he
added.
“Younger people no longer interact with
others, they just look at the screen of their smartphones; I hope my message
has reached them,” Nathan concluded.
On the other hand, the company acknowledged the
hacking via Twitter: “We are aware of the unauthorized activity on our
systems that led to the sending of emails to some of our customers. Our ethical
hacking team is investigating the incident; more information will be published
shortly.”
Specialists in ethical hacking from the
International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) mention that so far no
additional details are known. However, for security users registered in this
email list do not respond to any message or click on suspicious links.
