Book promotion website NetGalley suffered a data breach that allowed hackers to access a database of members' personal information.
NetGalley is a website that allows authors and publishers to promote digital review copies of their books (galleys) to book advocates, influential readers, and industry professionals in the hopes that they will recommend their books to the public
On Monday, December 21, the NetGalley website was hacked and defaced. Upon further investigation, it was determined that the threat actors also had access to a backup of database containing member data.
“It is with great regret that we inform you that on Monday, December 21, 2020, NetGalley was the victim of a data security incident. What initially appeared to be a simple defacement of homepage , upon further investigation, resulted in unauthorized and unlawful access to a backup file of the NetGalley database,” NetGalley said in a data breach advisory.
This backup database included personal information of NetGalley members, including login name, password, name, and email. Other optional information that could be in the database includes birthday, company name, and Kindle email.
NetGalley states that there was no financial information stored in the database. In response to the breach, NetGalley is requiring all users to reset their password upon next login.
What should NetGalley users do?
If you are a NetGalley member, you should log in to the site immediately and change your password.
If you use the same NetGalley password on other websites, you should change the password on those websites to one that is unique and strong for that website.
Using unique passwords on every website you have an account on is very important to avoid being affected when a data breach occurs on a website.
It is recommended that you use a password manager to help you store your passwords for each website.
Information source: bleepingcomputer.com
