GLOBAL: Password Change required for Anime Boston Forums
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2018 8:22 pm
Anime Boston and the New England Anime Society place an importance upon your privacy and data information. As a precautionary measure, we want you to be aware of a data security incident that may include some of your personal contact information.
Earlier today one of our forum administrator accounts was compromised and accessed by an unauthorized third party. That party proceeded to access the list of users on the Anime Boston Forums (forums.animeboston.com) and downloaded a list of user information such as usernames, email addresses, and the hashed passwords, as well as any other information entered in a forum user profile.
As a precautionary measure we are requiring all Anime Boston forum users to change their passwords at their next login. Going forward passwords much be changed once a year for all users. We also advise users to have different passwords on each website, to prevent a compromised password from being used elsewhere.
Please be aware that the hashed passwords that were copied cannot be used to log into any accounts on their own. Password hashing is done to store password values in a secure method so they cannot be read in just such an occasion.
The unauthorized user did not access attendee Registration data in any way, including first and last names, mailing addresses, dates of birth, or credit card information. Registration data is stored in a secured and wholly separate system managed by our contractor Expo Logic.
To our knowledge, the unauthorized user also did not access other information on the Anime Boston website such as the Staff HQ, Cosplay HQ, Dealers' Room registration, Artists' Alley registration, or Exhibitor Tax ID Registration. While that information is managed by Anime Boston staff, it is stored separately and is effectively walled off from the forums system.
We at Anime Boston and New England Anime Society value your privacy and deeply regret that this happened. We are conducting a thorough review of how this account was compromised and the full impact of it. We will make additional notifications if any significant developments arise.
Please feel free to ask any questions below or via our Contact Page.
Earlier today one of our forum administrator accounts was compromised and accessed by an unauthorized third party. That party proceeded to access the list of users on the Anime Boston Forums (forums.animeboston.com) and downloaded a list of user information such as usernames, email addresses, and the hashed passwords, as well as any other information entered in a forum user profile.
As a precautionary measure we are requiring all Anime Boston forum users to change their passwords at their next login. Going forward passwords much be changed once a year for all users. We also advise users to have different passwords on each website, to prevent a compromised password from being used elsewhere.
Please be aware that the hashed passwords that were copied cannot be used to log into any accounts on their own. Password hashing is done to store password values in a secure method so they cannot be read in just such an occasion.
The unauthorized user did not access attendee Registration data in any way, including first and last names, mailing addresses, dates of birth, or credit card information. Registration data is stored in a secured and wholly separate system managed by our contractor Expo Logic.
To our knowledge, the unauthorized user also did not access other information on the Anime Boston website such as the Staff HQ, Cosplay HQ, Dealers' Room registration, Artists' Alley registration, or Exhibitor Tax ID Registration. While that information is managed by Anime Boston staff, it is stored separately and is effectively walled off from the forums system.
We at Anime Boston and New England Anime Society value your privacy and deeply regret that this happened. We are conducting a thorough review of how this account was compromised and the full impact of it. We will make additional notifications if any significant developments arise.
Please feel free to ask any questions below or via our Contact Page.