GoDaddy hacked, data of 1.2 million WordPress users at risk
GoDaddy has suffered a huge data breach that gave an attacker access to 1.2 million email addresses belonging to company’s active and inactive Managed WordPress users.
In a blog post, GoDaddy’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Demetrius Comes said unauthorised access to its managed WordPress servers had come to light.
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“Up to 1.2 million active and inactive Managed WordPress customers had their email address and customer number exposed. The data breach presents risk of phishing attacks,” says Demetrius Comes.
GoDaddy says on November 17, the company discovered unauthorised third-party access to Managed WordPress hosting environment and immediately locked the attacker out before beginning an investigation and contacting law enforcement.
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“We identified suspicious activity in our Managed WordPress hosting environment and immediately began an investigation with the help of an IT forensics firm and contacted law enforcement. Using a compromised password, an unauthorised third party accessed the provisioning system in our legacy code base for Managed WordPress,” the company explained.
GoDaddy has warned users that this exposure can put users at greater risk of phishing attacks. The investigation is underway.
The original WordPress Admin password that was set at the time of provisioning was also exposed. “If those credentials were still in use, we reset those passwords. For active customers, sFTP and database usernames and passwords were exposed. We reset both passwords,” said GoDaddy.
-PTC News with agency inputs
