Too often, we blame the media for being part of a problem when they spill information that makes solving crimes harder to do. But when a serious case of information piracy was carried out against the popular UK gaming company Ladbrokes, it was the media in the form of the UK newspaper, the Daily Mail that were part of the solution and not part of the problem.
It is important for an internet gaming business to be able to assure their customers that they can gamble to their hearts content in safety online. Ladbrokes first became aware that the security of their highly valuable customer database had been compromised from the Daily Mail when the newspaper was contacted to advertise sale of information from that very stolen database.
The Daily Mail knew what to do and were an invaluable ally to Ladbrokes and to UK investigative teams to solve this crime. The database that was being put up for sale was packed with sensitive information about Ladbrokes customers including names, account numbers, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers. The individual that contacted the Daily Mail to put the data up for sale identified himself as an Australian person who once worked for Ladbrokes.
Because the Daily Mail was the organization contacted to sell the illegal information, they took action by engaging in a dialog with the criminals involved to gather important details that the authorities could use to solve the crime. That is some quick thinking on the part of the people at the newspaper. Through clever interactions with the bad guys, they found out that the company name associated with the sale of Ladbrokes’ data was named DSS Enterprises and it was a front for a Sri Lankan person who had indeed performed data analysis services to Ladbrokes before.
The amazing thing about this bad guy is he really did think that he could never be caught and even if he was, because it was a cyber crime, nothing could be done about it. But because the Daily Mail outsmarted the criminal, the authorities were given the inside scoop which gave them what they needed to go after a criminal like this. Moreover, it was a wake up call to Ladbrokes and to the online community about how to secure their data.
The authorities had nothing but praise for the Daily News because they did not just spill their guts about what they knew. Instead, they acted in a shrewd and intelligent way to use their place in the drama to get more information to make it possible to protect an important online gaming organization. Because they acted fast, Ladbrokes was able to secure their customer databases and the bad guy was not able to harm the company one little bit. Hopefully Ladbrokes used some of the money that was saved to take the folks at the Daily Mail out to a nice dinner. They certainly earned it.