IMPORTANT! Have you received an email to your forum username?

john_howard_fisher

For webby reference. yes i have been using the forums for some months now. but i have only recently signed up. i have received no email from new@ or business@ or anything else.

Leanne200

I got one but I just deleted it before I even came on here as I knew it was some sort of spam...

I never put two and two together and then saw the alert at the top of the forum!!

It had my username on it!

slowlyfading

I haven't had an email... yet.

garbhein1

While browsing MSE the last two days I noticed that they was a lot of adware cookies to be cleaned, I don't know if its relevant

4$£&*(£$&*(!

moneyexperthaydock wrote: »

I work at Moneyexpert and just want to confirm that this has nothing whatsoever to do with Moneyexpert.com or defacto, a partner of ours. We have been in touch with MSE throughout the day and I know they are doing everything thay can to get to the bottom of it. Whatever you do, please do not click on the link.

I can confirm Money Expert emailed me today at 1.35 saying:

This E-Mail was not sent out by ourselves, it is a spam message with a Trojan attached to it which has reference to ourselves and Defaqto. Hopefully you have not opened the attachment.

It appears the issue has something to do with the Money Saving Expert forums, if you would like to read up on this further you may do so by visiting the MSE website - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2866884

I haven’t linked that link just in case you don’t want to click it. Either visit the website or copy and paste into your web browser.

Any E-Mails we do send out have an unsubscribe link, I personally do not have access to the databases that any newsletters reside on, if you do receive any mailings from us and wish to unsubscribe please do so from the link in the E-Mail (it is usually at the bottom of the mail).

***

I am really concerned about this, if MSE has been hacked then we need to know is it time to change passwords etc.? This is what I would consider to be quite a serious data breach and we need some answers quickly.

Also I am really studious about ensuring I have different passwords on all different sites, but I do use my alias on one other forum. Fortunately this has a different password but I used to have the same passwords for everything before I took my login details more seriously, I am sure others will admit to doing the same, so if you have the same username and password I would say to be safe you make sure you change the password.

meggsy

My email came from moneyexpert admin from widhost.net on the internet headers, straight into my inbox, not picked up as spam.

dawyldthing

I've had an e-mail too

worldtraveller

23n1th wrote: »

....Some explanation and an apology might go a long way.

Did you read the OP?

"We're sorry for any problems this may have caused you. The e-mail did not come from and has nothing to do with Moneyexpert or defaqto, their names have been used to try and trick recipients into clicking the link.

We are still investigating how the e-mails were sent to so many of our users but we've found no obvious breach at this stage. We'll let you know more as it comes to light but it's possible that the e-mail addresses were harvested during a breach that happened last year...."

I'm sure that further information will be forthcoming from the MSE management later, when they have more definitive details.

Also, these matters never tend to be as simple as to be able to make general apologies, since there may also be legal implications involved.

PhylPho

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

>
That's just an assumption though. Even if the emails didn't contain peoples' real names, the email addresses were still obtained. This means potentially all of the user database was obtained, including date of birth, ICQ/AIM/MSN/Yahoo!/Skype IDs, website (if these were completed), plus a copy of the user's password (hopefully this was strongly hashed).

Spot on, mr fishbulb. I agree. The only reason I was making that assumption was because of the nature of what's going on where it seems one website has been set up to look like the cause of problems at another. That the two websites have similar names seems as much to cause confusion as mischief.

You're right in warning of the potential harvesting of far more than merely a posting ID alone and the email addy linked to it, but at the moment there's nothing to suggest the MSE breach -- and it's looking ever more likely that is the case -- is deeper than currently appears.

But yes. Situations change, and assumptions with 'em.

jojogirly

I got the email, thought it looked dodgy and deleted it.