Following suspicious activity on its servers, GoDaddy investigated and confirmed a breach that occurred on October 19, 2019. It is unclear how many of their 19 million customers were impacted.
It’s important to note that individual customer accounts were not affected and the information stored within, such as addresses and credit card numbers, was not exposed in this incident.
Yes, an unauthorized individual gained access to login credentials that allowed them to connect to SSH on an undisclosed number of accounts. SSH, an acronym for secure shell, is a technology used to log in to a remote machine and execute commands. SSH allows GoDaddy users to access their website’s files stored on a remote server. Connecting to SSH meant the hacker could have copied, modified, or even taken down people’s websites—although GoDaddy claims that no files were added or changed.
GoDaddy has reset all impacted hosting account logins, according to an email sent to customers, and is providing a year’s worth of free security and malware removal services for those customers affected.
Given this occured in October, the individual had access to customers’ hosting accounts for seven months. The incident highlights two key points:
- We often don’t hear about hacks and breaches until months (or even years) later.
- This means you won’t be notified to change your passwords in a timely fashion. If you reuse passwords, a bad actor who gets their hands on your credentials can use that information to log in to other accounts. This is one of the reasons having strong, unique passwords on every account is so important.
That’s where password managers, like Dashlane, can help. Dashlane has a built-in password generator to help you create strong passwords for new accounts and save them securely, plus in-app security alerts that notify you immediately when you need to change your passwords after a data breach.
Quit reusing weak passwords. Download Dashlane today and try Premium free for 90 days.
Visit our online safety hub for the latest breach report and a complete guide to staying secure on the internet.
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