Elance.com was hacked and my creditcard was stolen and abused

20 Jul 2009 von Alexander Kornbrust.

This time I am writing this blog entry as a victim…

My data (including my creditcard number) was stolen from the website elance.com. 24 hours later my creditcard number as abused. Luckily the criminals did a test booking for approx. 1 USD (in a webshop in the US) and the fraud detection team from Mastercard immediately locked my creditcard.

Here the short history:

Last friday, 18 July 2009, I received an email from Elance.com:
We recently learned that certain Elance user information was accessed without authorization, including potentially yours. The data accessed was contact information — specifically name, email address, telephone number, city location and Elance login information (passwords were protected with encryption). This incident did NOT involve any credit card, bank account, social security or tax ID numbers.

We have remedied the cause of the breach and are working with appropriate authorities. We have also implemented additional security measures and have strengthened password requirements to protect all of our users.

We sincerely regret any inconvenience or disruption this may cause.

If you have any unanswered questions and for ongoing information about this matter, please visit this page in our Trust & Safety center: http://www.elance.com/p/trust/account_security.html

For information on re-setting your password, visit: http://help.elance.com/forums/30969/entries/47262

Thank you for your understanding,

Michael Culver
Vice President
Elance

I thought: “Good to know that this happened. My creditcard information is not affected.”
20. july - Monday morning:  I tried to buy some gasoline. This was not possible because my card was not accepted: “Errorcode 02” . I payed with a different card and called the lufthansa mastercard service. They explained me that someone tried to buy something for 1 USD in Arizona and Mastercard has locked my card…

I will get a new creditcard within the next few days.

20. july - Noon: At home I read the email from elance again and I was really pissed off (passwords encrypted and not hashed) that they lied in the previous email. Send an email to elance.com (ticket#20836) and asked for details of this break-in. No answer so far…

will be continued….

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