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National Theatre Website Falls Victim to Hacker

National Theatre Website Falls Victim to Hacker

Date: 2 March 2010

17,000 National Theatre website members have been advised to reset their passwords following a “security incident” that occurred on 20 February 2010.

According to an email sent to the site's affected members, the security breach “may have led to your NT website account (email, password, name and contact information only) being accessed by an unauthorised user.”

The message goes on to say: “Your payment information is safely encrypted, so no financial or booking details have been viewed. 

The affected system has been secured, however we would ask you to change your password on the NT site and it would be prudent to do so on other sites where you use the same password.”

A spokesperson for the theatre told Whatsonstage.com that the membership system has now been secured and that “significant changes” are being made to guard against future attacks.

According to the website computing.co.uk, the National Theatre upgraded its payment security system last year "to comply with the payment card industry data security standards (PCI DSS)".

If you have any particular concerns or would like further information, contact itsecurity@nationaltheatre.org.uk or call +44 207 452 3850.

- by Theo Bosanquet

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Reader Comments


CommentDate
In reply to Mikey - the point is that the security breach was possible. What if the payment details were not encrypted? Harvesting emails, phone numbers, address and other personal info is big business and can be used to leverage further (more specific) attacks. - Dave

05 Mar 10

Surely nothing to get steamed up about. Passwords are easily changed and why should we care if someone knows who we are and where we live; it's no secret. This is just an occupational hazard of any web activity so don't get paranoid. - Mikey

04 Mar 10

I was a member of the public that received the email saying my personal 'contact details' may have been access by a hacker. The head of IT at the NT could not even tell me what 'contact details' included until I sent him an email to enquire. Instead of coming clean and telling us our HOME ADDRESS AND POST CODE was at risk he decided to come out with an idiot ambiguous statement. Many people fall victim to identify theft from situations like this and the head of IT at the NT doesn't seem to think we should know the severity of the issue. - NoSpam

04 Mar 10


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