While digital companies use various data protection systems to protect customer data, unauthorized hackers often manage to crack these systems to access sensitive company data and customer data. We have seen various major companies, including Facebook, Twitch, and Acer suffer data breaches on their platforms in recent times. Now, the popular web hosting platform GoDaddy has reported a data breach that exposed the email addresses and contact numbers of up to 1.2 million customers.
In a recent disclosure document to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Demetrius Comes, the Chief Information Security Officer at GoDaddy, revealed that the company has been hacked. Comes reported that GoDaddy discovered that an “unauthorized third party” was able to gain access to its Managed WordPress hosting ecosystem.
The hack exposed various company as well as customer data, including admin passwords for both WordPress sites hosted on the platform and passwords for sFTPs, databases, and SSL private keys.
The malicious actor was also able to gain access to the email addresses and phone numbers of up to 1.2 million of GoDaddy’s customers. In the official document, the company wrote that the exposure of customer email addresses increases the risk of phishing attacks.
Further, in the document, GoDaddy apologized to its customers for the data breach and asserted that it is currently investigating the issue. The company also claimed that it has started contacting affected customers directly to inform them about the breach. Moreover, GoDaddy stated that it will learn from this incident and strengthen its security systems with additional layers of protection.
