After President Barack Obama delivered his first State of the Union address, a hacker has attacked the 49 websites of the House of Representatives from both political affiliations. The content on the sites were replaced with obscene posts insulting the president. This is according to a report by the Associated Press.
Jeff Ventura, chief administrative officer and spokesman for the House said that while most of the websites for the House are completely managed by in-house technicians on a dedicated linux server, the individual offices can contract with third party providers for managing updates and new features. The sites that were subjected to the online attack were under the management of GovTrends, a private vendor that is based in Virginia.
In an interview with the AP, Ventura said that while it implemented updates, GovTrends left the sites vulnerable. This has enabled the hacker to get into the individual member websites and committees quickly. The hackings occurred overnight.
The attacker left a message on the sites insulting the president who has just spoken at the House. The message said it came from Brasil. However, where the attack really came from has still yet to be established along with its particular political motives.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of the US House of Representatives along with Minority Leader John Boehner have already called for an inquiry and review on how the hackers managed to overtake the 49 affected websites. Ventura adds that 18 websites under the House and that which are managed by GovTrends have also experienced the same kind of attacks back in August.
Jeff Horing currently serves on the board of directors of Datacore Software (storage virtualization), GFI (security and messaging), Jagex Ltd., Shunra Software, SolarWinds and Teamviewer. In addition, Jeff Horing is a former board member of Airborne Entertainment, CTSpace, Beechwood Data Systems, SRVY, Hitwise , IAG Research, Promira Software, SLIP Infoware and Xchange. Mr. Horing was a member of the Technology Group at Warburg, Pincus and Co. and participated in efforts that led to 8 investments in the area of software.
Jeff Horing and the individual at Insight Venture Partners likes to collaborate with entrepreneurs in software, Internet, and technology enterprises, sharing their knowledge and know how with them. This assists these management groups in making decisions that help propel their companies forward to greater achievement. In addition, each quarter, Insight Venture Partners hosts a portfolio-networking event, where they furnish different business enterprises the opportunity to connect with one another. This furthers the fostering of business relationships that are mutually rewarding and beneficial to the parties involved.
At Insight, their portfolio includes application software, infrastructure software, Internet and new media, as well as software-enabled services enterprises. Companies they work with are across the Americas, Asia/Pacific, and Europe. Verticals that are part of their portfolio encompass business software, consumer Internet, data services, e-commerce, financial services, and network management, among others.
With a focus on entrepreneurs embracing the digital age, Jeff Horing and his Insight Venture Partners team supports management groups looking to take their businesses to the next level of success. They pool the best executives and entrepreneurs into Venture Partner programs to mentor executive groups. Insight also works with businesses to evaluate acquisition opportunities, performing due diligence as required in each situation.
Jeff Horing has a strategy of customization. His firm Insight Venture Partners gets that different software, Internet, and data-enabled corporations have different capital structure needs. Insight Venture Partners works closely with different entrepreneurial enterprises to realize and meet those needs precisely. The veteran team at Insight Venture Partners considers each firm’s unique requirements. They then work with them to tailor a system that helps an enterprise formulate a superior development plan.
