This past Labor Day weekend, Clixsense was hacked. It appears that the hackers were able to gain access to a server that ultimately provided a copy of data table containing user information.
Clixsense has meanwhile regained control over their website and have issued a public statement, while making it mandatory that users reset their passwords: http://www.clixsense.com/en/Helpdesk-Announcements/230/Update_on_hacking
Unfortunately, what is not mentioned, is that members of Clixsense may have had their information sold and publicly exposed: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/plaintext-passwords-and-wealth-of-other-data-for-6-6-million-people-go-public/
What to do if you’ve been affected:
- Ensure that your Clixsense password is not used on any other website. If it is, immediately change your password.
- Ideally, use a password manager so that you don’t have to come up with new, secure passwords all the time, and that you don’t have to remember them either.
- DO NOT respond to any password reset requests that you did not initiate. You may receive phishing emails which appear to be coming from legitimate sources (Paypal, ebay, etc.). Do not click on these!
- DO NOT respond to any suspicious emails that may cite your personal information; if you start receiving ‘personalized’ emails with your birthday, etc. written in them, promptly mark them as spam and delete them.
- Always ensure that you are using a separate email account exclusively for your online surveys and GPT program accounts.
Although situations like these are rare, it’s very important to properly protect yourself online. Follow basic principles such as looking for ‘https’ when logging into a website, and peruse the Terms of Service so that you have a basic idea as to how your information is being handled.
If you’d like to discuss this topic, you may do so here: https://forum.surveypolice.com/index.php?/topic/6872-clixsense-hacked/
