NetGalley sent out an email today (and put a notice on their home page) informing users that the e-galley service has been hacked on Monday. The hackers defaced the NetGalley home page, and they also may have made off with a backup copy of the NetGalley database.
Here’s the text of the email, which can also be found on the NetGalley website. (There’s also an FAQ.)
Dear NetGalley Member,
It is with great regret that we inform you that on Monday, December 21, 2020 NetGalley was the victim of a data security incident. What initially seemed like a simple defacement of our homepage has, with further investigation, resulted in the unauthorized and unlawful access to a backup file of the NetGalley database.
It is with an abundance of caution that we wanted to let you know this incident may have exposed some of the information you have shared with NetGalley.
The backup file that was impacted contained your Profile information, which includes your login name and password, name and email address. Also, if supplied by you, your mailing address, birthday, company name, and Kindle email address. We currently have no evidence of the exposure of any of this data, but we cannot at this stage rule out the possibility. We expect that you may have many additional questions–below are the questions we would have if we received this email.
Please be assured that we take the security of our members' information very seriously and we sincerely regret that this incident occurred. We immediately reviewed our security standards and just implemented further means to protect your data. The next time you sign in you will be prompted to change your password.
We appreciate your understanding, and thank you for your support. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have other concerns. We wanted to provide you with this information as soon as possible, but like most companies, our team will be offline during the holidays–we will absolutely be available to answer your questions on December 28th. We hope you have a wonderful holiday.
All best,
The NetGalley Team