It was an e-retailer's nightmare. Then the company looked at its server logs. It found that a rogue had been accessing customer data files since the previous October, exposing the credit card numbers of 98,000 Bibliofind buyers. Thirteen percent reported that customers' credit card numbers were rendered accessible. But you can minimize the threat of theft by taking a few precautions.
Hackers usually break into sites through holes in Web server software.
Hundreds of these holes are discovered every year. To keep track of them, many sites use e-mail lists like Bugtraq. That's where, for example, you would have learned about the 32nd hole discovered in Microsoft's Windows 2000 Internet Information Server. Once hackers break into your Web server, they can satisfy themselves simply by fiddling with your homepage. Assuming your IT department is on the ball, that means breaking through a firewall.