Kickstarter, one of the most popular fundraising platforms used to raise capital for creative projects and businesses, revealed that customer data (including usernames, addresses, phone numbers and encrypted passwords) was accessed during the hack. The company informed that the security breach had been fixed, but still recommended users to change their passwords.
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Kickstarter admitted that hackers obtained access to some of its customers’ details, but the breach had already been repaired. The company’s representative specified that the intruders managed to access usernames, email and postal addresses, along with phone numbers and encrypted passwords.

Security experts point out that although passwords weren’t revealed, people with computer expertise could decipher encrypted passwords. This is why all Kickstarter users are recommended to change their passwords, especially if they used the same ones for other websites or accounts. The entity was informed of the breach by the law enforcement officials.

Kickstarter’s CEO claimed that the hackers didn’t get any credit card information, and the company’s security experts confirmed they had evidence of unauthorized activity only on 2 Kickstarter user accounts. Actually, the company didn’t event store any credit card data.

In the meantime, recent data leaks at Target Corp and Neiman Marcus have led to debate among American politicians and consumers about who is responsible for covering the cost of consumer losses and how to improve cyber security. The fundraising platform said that it had beefed up its security in recent days and was working in cooperation with law enforcement officials.

The service was launched in 2009 as a conduit for funding of various projects, from movies and stage shows to video games and restaurant launches. As you know, contributors to a project’s launch are usually compensated with different rewards, discounts, credits or other bonuses from the projects they fund. Kickstarter’s representative revealed that since the launch of the service 5 years ago, it helped fund over 100,000 projects, with hundreds of millions of dollars pledged.