TripAdvisor - Hacked

[WAMF]

This morning I woke to an email from the CEO of TA notifying some 20million members that the email address used to register on the site, had been stolen and to expect spam as a result!
This is a major hack in any ones books.

How secure is our info online? Even when we are told sensitive info is held on secure servers, this occurs?

For those that aren't members of TA, here's the email.

To our travel community: 
This past weekend we discovered that an unauthorized third party had stolen part of TripAdvisor's member email list. We've confirmed the source of the vulnerability and shut it down. We're taking this incident very seriously and are actively pursuing the matter with law enforcement. 
How will this affect you? In many cases, it won't. Only a portion of all member email addresses were taken, and all member passwords remain secure. You may receive some unsolicited emails (spam) as a result of this incident. 
The reason we are going directly to you with this news is that we think it's the right thing to do. As a TripAdvisor member, I would want to know. Unfortunately, this sort of data theft is becoming more common across many industries, and we take it extremely seriously. 
I'd also like to reassure you that TripAdvisor does not collect members' credit card or financial information, and we never sell or rent our member list. 
We will continue to take all appropriate measures to keep your personal information secure at TripAdvisor. I sincerely apologize for this incident and appreciate your membership in our travel community. 
Steve Kaufer
Co-founder and CEO 

 

[Dan]

thy generally only use crude code to hide email addresses on site, and as such they can be easily revealed. This has been happens a lot. Usually your credit card etc are pretty safe however.

I don't store mine anywhere online and would advise you against doing the same

 

[Mark from Brisbane]

I know we are antiquated but that's why I like people to handwrite their details on a booking form and scan or fax to me...I then charge them and we keep in a paper file until each trip has been completed, they then go straight in the shredder.

I know some people say to me "oh the same card as last time"...sorry I say I have destroyed the information.

I got the same e-mail as well WAMF