Wordsmoker

DeviantART can now add itself to the list of security deficit websites, joining the likes of McDonald’s and Gawker as sites violated by hackers this week.

DeviantART sent out an email to all of their account holders this evening, notifying them of a breach in the servers of Silverpop Systems Inc, the marketing company in charge of sending out emails to DeviantART’s members. DeviantART assured members that only user names and dates of birth were copied; all other private information remained untouched, and DeviantART’s servers remained intact. The hack is thought to be the result of a sweep by spammers, and members may experience an increase in spam to their email.

DeviantART went on further to state: “Because we value the information that members give us, we have decided not to rely on the services of Silverpop in the future and their servers will no longer hold any data from us.” This comes less than a week after a serious breach of servers at Gawker Media, compromising over a million user names and passwords, including those of top staff and administrators. Gawker is keeping with their current open-source script, Minify, whose weaknesses were exploited by the group of hackers known as Gnosis, though Gawker expects to hire an independent security firm to monitor and shore up existing infrastructure.

Yes, you read that right. DeviantART, a site with over 13 million registered users and 35 million visitors per month, fired a company over a relatively minor security issue, whereas Gawker is keeping their open-source script even after a huge violation of user privacy (not to mention the fact that they’ve known about the chinks in their super sexy security chain mail for months), and is issuing the equivalent of a BP apology.

Image via PCTechNotes