By Dorrothy Moyo| The ShareThis website has reported that a breach occurred in July 2018 which resulted in email addresses and hashed passwords (a form of encryption) being stolen. The breach, however, only came to light when the hacker posted the data for sale on the dark web earlier this week. BELOW WAS THE ANNOUNCEMENT:
What Happened?
On Tuesday, February 11, 2019, ShareThis became aware that it suffered a breach when The Register published a story indicating that 16 companies, including ShareThis, were the victims of a data breach. We believe that the breach occurred in July 2018 and your email and hashed passwords (a form of encryption) may have been impacted. The breach, unfortunately, only came to light when the hacker posted the data for sale on the dark web earlier this week.
What Information Was Involved?
We can tell from our initial investigations that email addresses, hashed passwords and some birth dates were part of the data breach. Please note that we have no indication that your password has been used by the hacker or other unauthorized individual.
What We Are Doing.
We value your privacy and deeply regret that this incident occurred. We want to make sure that you have resources to protect your information. We are reviewing our internal systems and are in the process of working with forensic and data security experts to review this incident and to identify measures we can take to bolster our security.
What You Can Do.
We want to make sure that you have resources to protect your personal information. Therefore, ShareThis will be deactivating any ShareThis accounts associated with this email address. We also encourage you to change your passwords across your accounts and be diligent with checking your spam and guarding against any potential phishing attempts.
Other Important Information.
Maintaining the integrity of confidential information is extremely important to us. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this incident may have caused you. We are continuing to investigate this matter and will take appropriate action to prevent future similar incidents. Please be assured that we will keep you informed of any developments in the investigation that may be of importance to you.