MH Facts. Is this a Scam message? (1 Viewer)

Emmit

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The below message has dropped into my Email.

Whilst I would never open any opportunity of opening a link in a spam message (and where there are any on this message I have replaced them with my own typing and put it in bold) I was wondering if this message is legitimate and if any other members of Fun, as members of or ex members of Facts.
Have a read;
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. VerticalScope owns and operates a number of community websites. You are receiving this email because you are a registered user of the following community website(s) involved in the data breach:
forums.motorhomefacts.com



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 have invalidated 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 have implemented 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. We will remind our users to use good password practices (not using the same password for multiple online accounts and using unique strong passwords). We are in the process of implementing additional safeguards to detect, alert and mitigate any future brute force attempts, and have notified our third party vendors that interact with our various forum API's of the February breach to allow their own security teams to investigate. We are continuing our investigation and will be collecting information to provide to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

VerticalScope is taking steps to strengthen account security. We were already using encrypted passwords and salted hashes to store passwords, and our new password controls are intended to further strengthen user security. We are taking steps to investigate and test new encryption and security technologies to further protect our users.

What You Can Do

To keep your account as safe as possible, we recommend that you regularly change your VerticalScope community password, and that you use a unique password for each of your online accounts. Using the same password for multiple online accounts significantly increases your chances of being compromised. Even though the passwords stolen in February were hashed, we recommend that if you were using (or are currently using) your VerticalScope community password across multiple online accounts, that you change your password for such other online accounts. We encourage you to regularly review your accounts and report any suspicious or unrecognized activity immediately.

For More Information

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our Community Management team by email at; cmsupport@verticalscope.com or on the website that you frequent. A support thread has been created on each website, and our support teams are on there to help you through the process and answer any questions you may have. A Notice of Data Breach is also available on community websites involved in the data breach.



This email was sent by VerticalScope Inc., 111 Peter Street, Suite 700, Toronto, ON, M5V2H1. If you have any questions regarding the communications you receive from us, please contact us.



i_safe.gif

So there you have it. Has anyone on here received such a message.? For me it makes no difference in that, although I have been on Facts in the past, I cannot remember how far back that was.
 
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Emmit

Emmit

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Further to the above. . The link in the post viz "forums.The Dark Side.com" was not typed as that by me.
What I typed was the Official title of that Forum (I'm sure you all know it. )
However, someone has had that title changed automatically within the system of this forum. Whilst I appreciate the history between the two forums, I do not think it right that a non abusive word can be changed by the administration of any forum when it is put there in context.
 

DanielFord

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Does the forum change abusive words then? I have got to try that!
Bums!

[edit]
Clearly not abusive enough!
 

Lee27

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Hi

the email isn't a scam, vertical scope have had issues and this has been discussed between VS and facts members on that forum and addressed some time ago, including a forced resetting of all account passwords. I assume you are receiving the email notification as a mechanism to catch remaining accounts that haven't set themselves a new password.

The fact that if i make a post on this forum, which includes the other forums name (facts) or address, it is rewritten with the words 'TheDarkSide' really annoys me to be honest, there is obviously some sort of rewrite routine in place to automate this, I find this very childish and inappropriate. i am aware there has been agro in the past between the two forums but have had nothing to do with it, however there have been multiple times that someone has posted a question here and i've had a very detailed and helpful response, likely including images etc, that i've posted on the other forum in the past, but i can't post a link due to the rewrite, meaning the user here doesn't get the help i could have provided.

Lee

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pappajohn

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Further to the above. . The link in the post viz "forums.The Dark Side.com" was not typed as that by me.
What I typed was the Official title of that Forum (I'm sure you all know it. )
However, someone has had that title changed automatically within the system of this forum. Whilst I appreciate the history between the two forums, I do not think it right that a non abusive word can be changed by the administration of any forum when it is put there in context.
Been like that since FUN was a lad.
Try typing 'motorhomefun' into a reply on facts....you'll get the same censorship.
Jim has his reasons and Jim's the boss.
 

DBK

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Further to the above. . The link in the post viz "forums.The Dark Side.com" was not typed as that by me.
What I typed was the Official title of that Forum (I'm sure you all know it. )
However, someone has had that title changed automatically within the system of this forum. Whilst I appreciate the history between the two forums, I do not think it right that a non abusive word can be changed by the administration of any forum when it is put there in context.
There is nothing sinister about the change, it is to stop people putting links here which point back to the "other place". This site is very popular and any link to a site which appears here gives extra Google points* to the external site.

*There's probably a more technical term for it!
 

jonandshell

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Why are we discussing matters on here which concern another forum?

Why not post the question there?

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Sep 23, 2013
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if i make a post on this forum, which includes the other forums name (facts) or address, it is rewritten with the words 'TheDarkSide'
It's a commercial decision. A significant factor in a site's Google ranking is the number of links pointing to it. So the ban on links to the Dark Side is not for the purpose of blocking individual funsters following the link there, but to prevent what is, in effect, free advertising of the site by raising it's Google profile.

It will be of less significance now, but there was a time when a lot of links were posted. I imagine there would have been more links posted from this site than from any other single site.

EDIT: DBK beat me to it.
 
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Why are we discussing matters on here which concern another forum?

Why not post the question there?
Quite a few people on here will have had, or may still have active or dormant accounts on that site. They may not be aware of the potential hack of their information, so it is a useful heads up.
 

jumartoo

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I go on an expat forum run by vertical scope and passwords have had to be reset on there also.

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Minxy

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Does the forum change abusive words then? I have got to try that!
Bums!

[edit]
Clearly not abusive enough!
There was a time when if you called anyone a naughty word it would automatically change that word to say "it's not nice to insult people" ... it also didn't like Scunthorpe either but doesn't seem to be 'bothered' by it now! :D

... anyone remember the episode of Red Dwarf where they were trying to get Kryton to swear ... classic! :LOL:
 
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I didn't get that email and have an account over there. Not impressed.

One thing that you SHOULD do immediately. Is change the password on any other site that you have used the same email address and password on. This is critical.
 
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I didn't get that email and have an account over there. Not impressed.
They did a mass mailing using a free smtp server. Some emails are arriving late, many got trapped by various spam filters. That isn't a big problem as far as FACTS is concerned, because you will already be blocked from logging on & would be told to reset your password; but as you rightly say, not knowing about the possible problems elsewhere is the bigger issue.

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Feb 27, 2011
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They did a mass mailing using a free smtp server. Some emails are arriving late, many got trapped by various spam filters. That isn't a big problem as far as FACTS is concerned, because you will already be blocked from logging on & would be told to reset your password; but as you rightly say, not knowing about the possible problems elsewhere is the bigger issue.

It doesn't bother me to be honest as I use a different and unique email and password for every single site I log into.

Surely no-one does that?
Most people do. They have remembered about 2-5 passwords and use the same ones across multiple sites. I spend a lot of time educating my clients about using password managers to use unique passwords per site.
 

DanielFord

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There was a time when if you called anyone a naughty word it would automatically change that word to say "it's not nice to insult people" ... it also didn't like Scunthorpe either but doesn't seem to be 'bothered' by it now! :D

... anyone remember the episode of Red Dwarf where they were trying to get Kryton to swear ... classic! :LOL:
My daughter is called Holly, have a guess why? :D Although I only recently admitted this to my wife :D

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Jim

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The fact that if i make a post on this forum, which includes the other forums name (facts) or address, it is rewritten with the words 'TheDarkSide' really annoys me to be honest, there is obviously some sort of rewrite routine in place to automate this, I find this very childish and inappropriate.

Lee

Hi Lee, that is a server re-write. It's been like that for years. I agree it is childish, I'll continue with the childishness and say...I didn't start it, they did :pSee here. http://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/resources/motorhomefun-history.64/

That site is mentioned so little these days, especially since that Canadian company took it over, there really is no reason to keep that re-write in place. But I probably will, because I can. :)
 

DanielFord

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That site is mentioned so little these days, especially since that Canadian company took it over, there really is no reason to keep that re-write in place. But I probably will, because I can. :)
So are there other words that rewrite, should I post random swear words to find them? :D
 

Jim

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I only just received the e-mail today. It could explain why I suffered several spam messages (which I hardly ever receive these days) during July.


I got the email yesterday from an American forum they own. Not bad consider the breach was a month ago :)
 

GJH

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I got the email yesterday from an American forum they own. Not bad consider the breach was a month ago :)
It wasn't a month ago though Jim. The breach was in February and they found out about it more than 2 months ago - "On June 13, 2016, we became aware that February 2016 data stolen from VerticalScope was being made available online."
They really should have been quicker, especially when (as this thread shows) some people were notified over a month ago.
I've asked them to explain themselves. Not that I'm evil of course :sneaky::D

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Easyliving

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Hi Lee, that is a server re-write. It's been like that for years. I agree it is childish, I'll continue with the childishness and say...I didn't start it, they did :pSee here. http://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/resources/motorhomefun-history.64/

That site is mentioned so little these days, especially since that Canadian company took it over, there really is no reason to keep that re-write in place. But I probably will, because I can. :)

I have no interest in Motorhome Facts and don't use the site. I am aware that there is 'history' between Facts and Fun in the past.

I had no idea that the words 'Motorhome Facts' were changed by forum software automatically and, to be perfectly blunt, I don't like it much. I would be a hypocrite if I didn't say that changing people's posts because you can when we pay to be members of this site goes against the grain.

Paul
 

Chris

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Edit - I was just testing if the forum changed what I had typed- it didnt

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big map

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Edit - I was just testing if the forum changed what I had typed- it didnt
If you're not busy would you have time to check through an agreement between Safe and London Borough of Hackney? ;)
 

Jim

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I have no interest in Motorhome Facts and don't use the site. I am aware that there is 'history' between Facts and Fun in the past.

I had no idea that the words 'Motorhome Facts' were changed by forum software automatically and, to be perfectly blunt, I don't like it much. I would be a hypocrite if I didn't say that changing people's posts because you can when we pay to be members of this site goes against the grain.

Paul

Hi Paul, its the full URL to that site that is blocked and for good reason. To be perfectly blunt, If this ruins your fun please let me know and I'll organise a refund for you right away.
 

Chris

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If you're not busy would you have time to check through an agreement between Safe and London Borough of Hackney? ;)

I am about to go to work - I have been child sitting all morning waiting to do the afternoon/ evening shift.

I have done quite a lot of work for Hackney over the years so I would probably have a conflict anyway about pointing out any howlers in the contract;)

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