Talk Show Host Gets Bank Account Hacked

Dan Morrill — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:13:50 +0000

Hackers turn the tables on the talk show host “Top Gear” who made an outrageous claim that no one could do anything evil if their banking information was stolen.

The humor part comes in that when he checked his bank account, someone had done a 500 pound (1000 dollar) donation to diabetes UK.

There is a certain amount of amusement here, and with the proposed penalties about hacking tools in the UK, they desperately need smarter people, with the right tools, doing the right thing, if they are going to save their information security folks in that country at all.

The Top Gear host revealed his account numbers after rubbishing the furore over the loss of 25 million people’s personal details on two computer discs. He wanted to prove the story was a fuss about nothing. But Clarkson admitted he was "wrong" after he discovered a reader had used the details to create a £500 direct debit to the charity Diabetes UK. Source: BBC

There are serious issues when someone’s personal information has been stolen or lost. Unfortunately it took a solid demonstration of that to influence a celebrity on one of the hottest television shows in the UK.

Having data lost or stolen is serious business, he is lucky it only cost him 500 pounds to a local charity and not a complete gutting of his banking account.

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BBC Faces Probable Loss To YouTube

Doug Caverly — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:34:18 +0000

Talk about new media versus old: a report from Hitwise indicates that YouTube may soon overtake the main BBC site in terms of UK visits.

“Last week, BBC.co.uk ranked #14 among All Categories of websites with 0.82% of all UK Internet visits compared to YouTube’s #25 ranking with 0.81% of UK Internet visits,” reports Hitwise UK’s Vice President of Research, Heather Hopkins. That’s a very small difference in percentages, but a reasonably big difference in rankings.

Still, as Hopkins continues, we find that “[t]he gap between the two websites is closing rapidly. Last week, BBC had a 1.6% lead on YouTube in share of UK visits, down from 37% three months ago and 131% six months ago.” Yikes.

A graph provided by Hitwise then puts the problem (as fans of the BBC might see it) into more visible terms: BBC.co.uk’s market share has been pretty flat since June of last year, with only a slight upward trend. YouTube’s line, on the other hand, has moved up at something approaching a 45-degree angle.

“Share[s] of UK visits to BBC.co.uk continue to grow, up 13% year on year in May, however it is far outpaced by gains from YouTube. YouTube’s share of UK visits were up nearly 7-fold (669%) year on year in May and up 140% in the past six-months,” interprets Hopkins.

Still, this may not be quite as horrible as it could seem (again, in the opinion of BBC followers); the BBC has been known to make mash-ups with Google, and has actually signed a deal with YouTube itself. So some of that YouTube traffic may well be related to BBC videos. After all, who wouldn’t want to watch the Stig tear around in a Lamborghini and a Zonda?

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Talk Show Host Gets Bank Account Hacked

BBC Faces Probable Loss To YouTube