Although we do not believe users are going to be impacted, the report by Net News Daily, and then followed up by The Inquisitr, saying that Teens in Tech’s WordPress admin panel was breached by a hacker is correct. We are working with numerous parties, including our legal representation, to ensure any potentially identifiable user data will remain safe, and that there will be no repeat of this incident.
I also wanted to personally clarify some of the numbers quoted in the reports, which suggest I have overstated our current position. We are in the early phase of our network. We are proud of what we have accomplished so far, and have aggressive growth plans. At this time, we have more than 400 active users, and 600 over our network sites. These sites see more than 10,000 individual accesses monthly, and are expanding.
Once again, I wanted to personally insure that our users’ data and security is our number one goal.
I will continue to update this blog and our official Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/teensintech to make sure you are informed.
Thanks,
Daniel Brusilovsky
Update: We have sent an important email to all of our users. If you are a user of Teens in Tech, we strongly suggest that users taken action.
9 Comments
Good on ya, Daniel. Hang in there.
FYI, the Inquisitr link is broken. I know this is probably the least of your worries right now. Freaking hackers.
Thanks for the heads up, Josh. All fixed.
Most likely someone guessed the password for one of the admin accounts. We’ve reset them to stronger passwords.
keep up the good work and i hope everything all gets sorted out soon
The precedent that is being set by these hacker attacks, and the reporting of information gained via these means is alarming.
Apparently the Patriot Act has been extended to cover corporate ethics…? And can be executed by anyone with a news blog? Give me a break.
Daniel:
Based on two comments that I left on the Net New’s Daily post that started this controversy, they have removed aspects of the post. And amended it.
They also removed my comments.
I am posting them here (following), as well as a third comment that I left there a moment ago in response to their new actions.
It all reeks of non-professionalism and unaccountability.
Good luck.
For The Record
===================
The following comments were addressed to Nathan Adam, Scott Campbell and Paul McEnhill at netnewsdaily.com.
After comments 1 and 2 were posted, the information mentioned in my comments was removed and the original post edited.
COMMENT 1
===================
While there is some perceived “good” from this, the act of publishing rewards someone who obtained the information illegally.
Apparently the Patriot Act has been extended to cover corporate ethics…? And can be executed by anyone with a news blog? Give me a break.
Aside from issues covered by the Patriot Act (which is famously controversial in terms of personal rights and freedoms), most POLICE agencies are required to obtain warrants for this sort of monitoring. Cases are thrown out of court for acts like this.
Those here saying that Daniel is not a victim apparently feel that law does not extend to the Internet. Remember when they used to call it the Wild West?
This sort of thing serves the entire social media industry a disservice.
Personally, I expect that there is a serious karmic backlash for the ‘hacker’ and this ‘news’ blog, if not a serious legal issue.
Daniel, you’ve owned up to your mistake – that’s great. But don’t be bullied by some of these people saying you’re the one who is wrong.
I recommend that call whichever policing agency applies to you and file a complaint against this “news” blog.
I also think you should reach out to @ev at Twitter and see if he has words of wisdom for you. No doubt they’ve had some very highly paid lawyers investigating various routes in regard to the famous incident that obviously inspired this “news” blog and it’s (criminal) “source”.
Karma.
COMMENT 2
===================
PS: Regarding those who commented with “people’s lives are at risk”:
While this may or may not be true, the appropriate thing would have been to comment on the security issue – not the numbers.
Further, the screenshot I see in the “article” contains people’s email addresses, names and what-not.
By posting that you’ve committed the act you claim to be trying to prevent. You at least could have blacked out that private information.
“Good job!”
COMMENT 3 (Posted after the information was removed)
===================
Nathan: I guess you agreed with me, since you’ve removed the information.
My commentary was valid and respectful. And you’ve removed that as well.
So much for the transparency that this article was supposedly based upon.
You should have left what you had written, and amended it with an update.
These actions are not acts of journalism.
All this, well after the fact that you’ve tarnished someone’s name.
I believe you owe a few apologies.
Update:
It appears as though the entire post has now disappeared in the couple minutes since I posted the third.
Incredibly ridiculous.
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