Toronto-based VerticalScope said that it was the victim of a data breach earlier this year, in which millions of user records were stolen.
The company operates over 1,100 websites and online forums, such as AutoGuide.com, PetGuide.com, Motorcycle.com and ATV.com, among others.
VerticalScope announced that it was only recently aware of what it calls a “potential breach.” The company said that its internal security team is investigating the attack and is cooperating with law enforcement agencies in relation to the hack.
"We believe that any potential breach is limited to user names, user IDs, email addresses, IP addresses and encrypted passwords of our community users," said VerticalScope vice-president of corporate development in a statement to
CBC News.
Although the company claims that only encrypted passwords were stolen, website Leaked Source revealed that VerticalScope did not use strong encryption on most of its users’ passwords.
Leaked Source, a website that archives information on online data hacks, published a list of decrypted passwords used on VerticalScope forums. Many of the hacked passwords listed seem to be the default ones provided by the company, such as "18atcskd2w"—the second most used password among VerticalScope accounts. The password “password” was listed as the third most common keyphrase.
It is not known if VerticalScope had secured cyber security insurance coverage to protect itself from the damaging data breach.
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