Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

Some of you may have read about VerticalScope being hacked earlier this year, when millions of user passwords were stolen. 

Here's just a few of the online articles that reported last it week:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/verticalscope-hacked-45-millions-from-1100-websites-forums-stolen-2016-6

http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/48404/deep-web/verticalscope-data-breach.html

http://www.leakedsource.com/blog/verticalscope

and here's VerticalScope's slightly belated knee-jerk response:

http://www.verticalscope.com/about-us/notice-of-data-breach.html

Notice of Data Breach

You may have heard reports recently about a security issue involving VerticalScope. We would like to make sure you have the facts about what happened, what information was involved, and the steps we are taking to help protect you.

What Happened?

On June 13, 2016, we became aware that February 2016 data stolen from VerticalScope was being made available online.

What Information Was Involved?

Community member usernames, email addresses, hashed passwords, community userIDS, community website, and the IP address the username originally registered with.

What We Are Doing

We are in the process of invalidating passwords of all VerticalScope user accounts. We have posted a site security notification on each site updating users on the potential risk to certain accounts, the password reset and steps we are implementing to improve security. We are in the process of implementing stronger password rules (passwords now require a minimum of 10+ characters and a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols) along with automated account password expiries to encourage more frequent password changes.

Blah, blah, blah ....

Yesterday I had to re-set my WatchUseek password and today SCWF.

Looks like some SCWF members are having difficulties. I know I did. 

http://www.thewatchsite.com/82-thewatchsite-com-website-help-technical-issues/233209-password-changes.html

I suspect the same thing happened on UhrForum.de last week, because my (saved) password suddenly ceased to work. 

Unfortunately, it seems I'd registered on there (as Seiko_7A38, rather than my usual Seiko7A38) using a different email address.

After several attempts at attempting to re-set my password, but not getting any messages, I gave up. Won't be going back. 

The news was met with some hilarity over on TZ-UK (another watch forum I frequent):

http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.php?372190-Verticalscope-Hacked

Reason being that VerticalScope attempted an abortive take-over of TZ-UK last November:

http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.php?351673-IMPORTANT-Change-of-forum-ownership

Forum owner Eddie Platts soon saw sense, after a few gaffes by new owner Philip Barbosa (and pressure from his membership):

http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.php?354013-The-reports-of-my-demise-are-an-exaggeration

You'll be pleased to know that Webs and this forum are in no way associated with VerticalScope.