The popular freelancing site has recently suffered an attack by hackers who managed to steal the personal information of Elance users including their including name, email address, telephone number, city location, and username, and that contained protected versions of user passwords, strongly encrypted in a format called a one-way hash!
The stolen user data is now appearing on OutsourcingRoom.com, a competing service. Elance writes that it is trying out its best to have the data removed from there.
Another thing to note here is that the hackers did not steal any financially important data from the user accounts which included credit card numbers, bank account, social security or tax ID numbers.
Many Elance Users have recieved the following letter from the Vice President of Elance
The Letter
It has recently come to our attention that certain Elance user information was accessed without authorization, including potentially yours. The data accessed was contact information — specifically name, email address, telephone number, city location and Elance login information. This incident did not involve any credit card, bank account, social security or tax ID numbers.
We have remedied the cause of the breach, and are working with appropriate authorities. In the meantime, please take extra precautions in protecting your Elance account. For example, do not provide your login information on any site that is not http://www.elance.com, and NEVER give out passwords by email, over the telephone or on websites that are not the Elance site.
We sincerely regret any inconvenience or disruption this may cause.
For more details and ongoing information about this, please visit this page in our Trust & Safety center: http://www.elance.com/p/trust/account_security.html
Michael Culver
Vice President
Elance
Techzeus.com personally advises all online users to never reveal their passwords to anyone. And yes do not keep “password” or “secret” as your default password to prevent Identity theft.
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