Kickstarter Hacked, User Data Stolen But Payment Info Untouched

Kickstarter, the popular crowdfunding website, said in a blog post this afternoon that hackers gained access to “some” of Kickstarter’s customer data last week. In an email to members CEO Yancey Strickler said:

“On Wednesday night, law enforcement officials contacted Kickstarter and alerted us that hackers had sought and gained unauthorized access to some of our customers’ data. Upon learning this, we immediately closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures throughout the Kickstarter system.”

The message also appears on the company’s blog post. The co-founder of the company said that the breach was closed immediately and that security measures and precautions were taken system wide.

Currently no credit card information was found to be taken by the attackers only usernames, email and mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords. Kickstarter emphasized this in its blog post saying:

“No evidence of unauthorized activity of any kind on all but two Kickstarter user accounts.”

It is not clear who is responsible for the hack or how many user accounts have been affected. Strickler wrote:

“We have since improved our security procedures and systems in numerous ways, and we will continue to do so in the weeks and months to come.”

The company apologized to its members, saying:

“We’re incredibly sorry that this happened. We set a very high bar for how we serve our community, and this incident is frustrating and upsetting. We have since improved our security procedures and systems in numerous ways, and we will continue to do so in the weeks and months to come.”

As you may expect, you are strongly encouraged to change your password associated with your account, as well as on any sites where you have used the same password.

If you have any comments, questions, or concerns you can reach the company by emailing accountsecurity@kickstarter.com.