{"id":7280,"date":"2019-02-08T13:39:40","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T13:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/parenting-site-mumsnet-hit-by-data-breach\/"},"modified":"2019-02-08T13:39:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T13:39:40","slug":"parenting-site-mumsnet-hit-by-data-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/parenting-site-mumsnet-hit-by-data-breach\/","title":{"rendered":"Parenting site Mumsnet hit by data breach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Mumsnet breach message\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/13AB6\/production\/_105566508_d32ff017-d465-4d4e-9c67-0a24acc0504a.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Mumsnet<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts posted a lengthy explanation about the breach<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Parenting site Mumsnet has reported itself to the UK&#8217;s data protection watchdog after an upgrade let some people see details of other accounts.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mumsnet.com\/Talk\/site_stuff\/3501854-Mumsnet-data-breach-please-read\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">In a message placed on the site,<\/a> it said the problem occurred between 5 and 7 February.<\/p>\n<p>Accounts got mixed up if two users logged in at exactly the same time, said Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts.<\/p>\n<p>No passwords were exposed in the breach and she said the site was investigating how many users had been affected.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve every right to expect your Mumsnet account to be secure and private,&#8221; wrote Ms Roberts. &#8220;We are working urgently to discover exactly how this breach happened and to learn and improve our processes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Early analysis suggested that at least 14 people were affected by the breach. Some of those affected sounded the alarm to Mumsnet early on 7 February that they could view other accounts.<\/p>\n<p>Those affected would have been able to see information including:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">email address<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">account details<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">posting history<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">personal messages<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mumsnet said it had now reversed the software update that caused the issue. It has also forced all users to log out so anyone still lurking in another user&#8217;s account would be removed from it.<\/p>\n<p>The ICO said it had received the report from Mumsnet and would be looking into the incident.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption body-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Analysis by technology reporter Zoe Kleinman<\/h2>\n<p>Mumsnet tends to make the headlines for light-hearted reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Often it is a result of some of the more bizarre issues raised by members of the parenting site on its chat forums (the &#8220;penis beaker&#8221; is the stuff of legend, look it up) and the head-scratching acronyms such as AIBU (am I being unreasonable), DC (darling children) and LTB (leave the\u2026 you can guess the rest).<\/p>\n<p>However, it is also for some women the first platform they turn to for help and advice on a number of deeply personal issues: intimacy, abuse, domestic violence, miscarriage, adultery, loneliness, their children&#8217;s special needs. <\/p>\n<p>They worry about being identifiable to fellow &#8220;mumsnetters&#8221; who may know them in real life, and even their partners stumbling across their posts. The trust they put in Mumsnet to protect their privacy &#8211; and perhaps as a result their safety &#8211; is considerable.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of writing these posts or private messages while accidentally being logged on as someone else is genuinely concerning and while it&#8217;s a relief that it does not appear to have affected many people, the disclosure will be worrying for some. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-47169466\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Mumsnet Image caption Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts posted a lengthy explanation about the breach Parenting site Mumsnet has reported itself to the UK&#8217;s data protection watchdog after an upgrade let some people see details of other accounts. In a message placed on the site, it said the problem occurred between 5 and 7 &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}