Massive data breach hits 1.3 million users -- what to do now

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Massive data breach hits 1.3 1000000 users -- what to do at present

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Havenly, an American interior-design and home-decorating company, has confirmed what had been suspected: Information technology'southward had user information stolen a major data breach.

This became manifestly last week when notorious hacker group ShinyHunters offered gratis admission to a Havenly database with one.iii million pieces of user information via a forum on the dark web.

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Treasure trove of information

Co-ordinate to Bleeping Reckoner, Havenly told the website over the weekend that it has indeed been 1 of eighteen companies whose stolen data, comprising 386 meg user records, was being given away past ShinyHunters.

The other companies include HomeChef, Promo.com, Mathway, Chatbooks, Dave.com, Wattpad annd Microsoft'south GitHub account. Information technology'due south non clear whether ShinyHunters were the group or individual that stole the information, or if the data had already been billowy around the internet.

As per the Bleeping Figurer report, the Havenly database contained information such every bit account login names, the names of customers, hashed passwords, phone numbers, nil codes, email addresses and website usage data.

But the passwords were apparently hashed using the rather weak MD5 algorithm, which means many of them are as good as cracked.

You'll definitely need to alter your Havenly password, only yous should also change it anywhere else you lot used the same password -- and make sure that each of those other sites and services gets a unlike password. One of the all-time password managers volition help mightily with those chores.

Havenly told Bleeping Computer that it had begun alerting users of the incident, although there didn't seem to anything about it on the Havenly website when nosotros were finalizing this story midday Monday (Aug. 3).

Confirming the breach

Havenly told Bleeping Computer that it had "recently become enlightened of a potential incident" and as a event was forcing all users to alter their passwords.

"Nosotros take the security of our community very seriously," read Havenly's argument to Bleeping Computer. "As a precaution, nosotros wanted to let you know that we recently became enlightened of a potential incident that may have afflicted the security of certain customer accounts. Nosotros are working with external security experts to investigate this thing.

"However, in the concurrently, out of an abundance of circumspection, we are logging all existing customers out of their Havenly accounts and asking our customers to reset their password when they next log in to the Havenly website. Every bit a all-time exercise, nosotros also encourage all of our customers to use dissimilar passwords across all online services and applications, and to update those passwords now and on a regular basis."

Havenly added that while it doesn't accept access to complete credit carte numbers, the last four numbers could exist impacted past the alienation.

Information technology explained: "Nosotros doubtable that many of you volition be concerned about the credit card numbers that you lot've used with Havenly in the by. Please note: we do Non store credit card data, autonomously from the terminal 4 digits of the carte in some cases, which is non enough to engage in credit card fraud."

What to exercise

Companies are increasingly being affected by security breaches, and cyber criminals are constantly finding ways to bypass security systems. Then it's crucial that people take steps to protect their information.

Yous should simply create strong passwords, avert reusing passwords, sign up to breach notifications from companies and download one of the best antivirus programs.

• More: Stay anonymous without the spend with a cheap VPN

Nicholas Fearn is a freelance technology journalist and copywriter from the Welsh valleys. His work has appeared in publications such as the FT, the Contained, the Daily Telegraph, The Next Web, T3, Android Central, Computer Weekly, and many others. He also happens to be a diehard Mariah Carey fan!

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/havenly-confirms-data-breach

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