We’ve confirmed reports that Practical Fish Keeping indeed has been hacked. Over 24,000 usernames/passwords have been affected. How did this happen? We don’t know, but according to Softpedia passwords of customers were stored via unencrypted means making it easier for a hacker to gain access to other customers sensitive data. Bauer Media Group, the company behind Practical Fish keeping says that they have no intention of relaunching the site until security on the site has been restored. It has been well over a week and Practical fish keeping is still down and possibly for the foreseeable future with the busy holiday season coming up. Who knows when we will be able to get our freshwater fix again. We have the email sent to all users of the site, feel free to take a quick-see below.
via [SoftPedia]
Dear Practical Fishkeeping website user
Why are we contacting you?
You have received this message because you are a registered user of our website practicalfishkeeping.co.uk.
We have been made aware that hackers have breached our website security. This is a criminal offence, and information on our register about our readers (usernames, passwords, email addresses, postal addresses and in some cases telephone numbers) may have been viewed or taken.
What are we doing?
We have taken immediate action to preserve the privacy and security of the data held by us, and are doing all we can to investigate exactly what has happened and to ensure that it cannot happen again. We have notified the Police and the Information Commissioner.
Practicalfishkeeping.co.uk is currently offline until security has been restored. You will be notified as soon as Practicalfishkeeping.co.uk is live again, and we are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience, but the security of our users is of paramount importance to us.
What should you do?
It is possible that the hackers might seek to use the information they have to commit identity fraud. You should be extra vigilant about checking for unexpected activity on your credit cards or bank accounts, and follow Home Office advice when using the Internet:
see http://links.special…zYS1&mt=1&rt=0.
If you used your password for practicalfishkeeping.co.uk for other websites, you should change those passwords.
How can I contact you?
Further information please contact [email protected]
It only remains for me to say how very sorry I am about what is a very upsetting and disruptive situation for us all.
Matt Clarke
Editor-in-Chief
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