I'm disappointed at Wattpad for not educating us about this matter. This is extremely serious and as Wattpad users, we all have the right to know about this. In behalf of those who are aware, I'm going to share what I know. Don't hesitate to comment if I missed some details.
On the first week of July, a cyber security film named 'Cyble' detected a data breach on Wattpad.
(A data breach is the intentional or unintentional release of secure or private/confidential information to an untrusted environment. Other terms for this phenomenon include unintentional information disclosure, data leak, information leakage and also data spill.)
A passage from 'Bleeping Computer',
'In an anonymous tip, it was told to some experts that this database [Wattpad] was being sold by Shiny Hunters, a group known for selling company databases acquired in data breaches. At the same time, another firm exposed that this database was being sold for ten bitcoins, or almost $100,000 at the time. Shiny Hunters were told about this breach, and at first, they were concerned about how the discoverers knew about the sale, and then later denied having anything to do with it. A few sample records of this database contain user names, names, hashed passwords, email addresses, and general geographic location.'
+ contact number + date of birth, etc.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I'm going to keep this short. Our privacy is in danger and we need to do something about it. No thanks to Wattpad. And they are aware of it, they ARE. A single tweet about it would be nice, you know.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
^ I believe that must be why most of us suddenly couldn't log in to Wattpad and that we needed to reset our password. Google accounts weren't really affected though.
-
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO (disclaimer: I'm not an expert on this. I'm just a worried user concerned for everyone's safety and privacy. Let's hope for the best. If you know more on this field, please comment about it).
- Change your account password[click the forget password button on Wattpad's homepage, enter your email address, click on the link that will be sent, use a new secure password]
- DO. NOT. PANIC.
- Share this with everyone. 271 MILLION USERS WERE AFFECTED. They need to know about this. Tag your friends :')
P.S. It's been a week/s since the breach happened, I can't believe we weren't informed. I only STUMBLED UPON the article on Reddit. What if it wasn't shared there, huh?
-
Resources (available in my latest profile announcement):
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Mark my words. That's legit. I visited the site and saw it myself (big mistake cause I risked a malware attack on my laptop fp). To download, you're gonna need credits (which you can get with euros).
I WROTE THIS CHAPTER TO GIVE AWARENESS. DON'T PANIC AND DO WHAT IS RIGHT.
EDIT: visit the site haveibeenpwned.com, it'll help!!!
EDIT: Researched about it and YES, CHANGING THE PASSWORD WILL HELP AFTER A BREACH SO DO IT RIGHT NOW. DON'T WASTE TIME.
EDIT: WATTPAD ADDRESSED IT THIS MORNING IN THE HELP PAGE BUT NOT EVRYONE SAW IT, INCLUDING ME-THEY SHOULD'VE ADDED A LINK FROM THE HOMEPAGE OR SOMETHING FOR EASIER ACCESS UGH.
