WooThemes , one of the most popular WordPress theme developers, appears to have been the victim of a data breach. The company is already aware of around 300 cases of malicious activity on its customers' credit cards, based on customer complaints .
The company announced that it was experiencing problems with its payment gateway on May 7. At that time, it immediately informed its customers and announced that sales would be halted until the security gap was fixed.
According to a blogdated today, the issue is under investigation. WooThemes is still trying to uncover the loophole that allowed the illegal activities.
“Almost all of the malicious transactions occurred in the last 5 days. Most of our customers have been notified, as have their banks, and the transactions have been stopped or the cards have been canceled,” said Mark Forrester, co-founder of WooThemes.
The company asked security firm Sucuri to conduct a security audit. So far, Sucuri has identified three modified files on WooThemes' server that indicate it has been attacked.
The company emphasizes that it does not store credit card information on its systems, so attackers would not be able to make transactions using that information. One possible scenario, according to Forrester, is that the information was intercepted during checkout.
All 230,000 subscribers to the company's newsletter have been notified of the breach. In addition, WooThemes has requested a full review of the payment gateway from the company that handled it, and has updated its SSL certificates.
