Bach Seat

Just in time for Data Privacy Day. Mailchimp, one of the largest email service-providers worldwide with 13 million active customers. suffered a security breach. On January 11, 2023 the Mailchimp security team reported that an unauthorized actor download the data of 133 customers of the Mailchimp service.

Mailchimp data leak

The Mailchimp security team identified an unauthorized actor had accessed tools used by Mailchimp customer-facing teams for customer support and account administration. The unauthorized actor conducted a social engineering attack on Mailchimp employees and contractors, and obtained access to Mailchimp accounts using employee credentials compromised in that attack.

Impacted organizations include WooCommerce, online gambling site FanDuel, Crypto darlings Yuga Labs and the Solana Foundation.

Mailchimp says they temporarily suspended account access for Mailchimp accounts where they detected suspicious activity to protect our users’ data. They have notified the primary contacts for all affected accounts on January 12. Mailchimp has been working with their customers to help them reinstate their accounts.

Recent data breaches

MailChimp has announced several data breaches in recent months. In August 2022, a cyberattack targeted its cryptocurrency-related customers. Mailchimp also revealed a security incident in March 2022.

Speculation is swirling online about the security of parent company Intuit other product lines (which includes TurboTax, Credit Karma and Quickbooks). TurboTax suffered its own security breach in 2021. Questions are also being raised about a possible central backdoor into Intuit, which the company denies.

If you have questions regarding a notice you received or the incident in general, please reach out you can email ciso@mailchimp.com. The company has not announced the appointment of a new CISO since Siobhan Smyth left the position in August 2022 shortly after the August 2022 was announced.

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Information exposed in data breaches like this is commonly used by attackers to target users with phishing attacks or attempt to reset passwords to gain account authorization. This is why multi-factor authentication (MFA) can help. Even if the bogus password resets were successful the MFA can prevent the attacker from going further.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.