The Internet makes it a lot easier for artists and other creative people to fund their endeavors with sites like Patreon, but using such services also makes their personal information a lot more vulnerable to attack (compared to, like, handing out their work on the street, I guess). Sadly, Patreon CEO Jack Conte warned users last night that the site had, indeed been hacked.
Luckily, Conte says the most sensitive user data, like “passwords, social security numbers, and tax form information” was encrypted and should be safe, and Patreon doesn’t store full credit card data, so the damage should be minimal. Still, he recommended that users at least change their Patreon passwords just in case.
What information did get out in the hack? “Registered names, email addresses, posts, and some shipping addresses,” as well as some billing addresses that were added before 2014.
Conte wrote in a note to Patreon users on the site’s blog,
I take our creators’ and patrons’ privacy very seriously. It is our team’s mission to help creators get paid for the immeasurable value they provide to all of us, and earning your trust to provide that service in a safe and secure way is Patreon’s highest priority. Again, I sincerely apologize for this breach, and the team and I are making every effort to prevent something like this from happening in the future.
So don’t worry, creative people of the Internet. You might want to take some precautions with your account, but no one is going to steal your identity only to find that it’s financially useless due to your crushing student loan debt.
(via The Verge)
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