Cooks Illustrated magazine has a security problem

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () bsf-llc com>]

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/webfaqs/
 

What happened to your website? 
On January 30, 2006, we determined that a file was deleted from the "back
office" part of our site. We do not know how, or by who, this file was
deleted, but because we keep sensitive personal information about our
website members on our servers, for security reasons we took all of our
sites down immediately. Since February 3rd, our sites have been back up and
running, although some limited functionality for website members has not yet
been restored.

Was any of my personal information compromised?
As soon as we discovered that a file had been deleted from our website
server, we immediately investigated the cause of this problem.  Our
investigation has been unable to determine how, why, or by whom the files
were deleted.  Although we do not have conclusive evidence that the file
deletion was the work of an intruder, it is possible that an individual
gained unauthorized access to our computers.  The deleted file did not
contain any credit card information.  However, given the possibility that
someone did gain unauthorized access to our system, we are notifying all
website members that their credit card information may have been unlawfully
accessed, and providing recommended steps that members should take to
protect themselves from credit card fraud and identity theft. 

Why did you not contact me before now?
As soon as we determined that a file had been deleted from our Internet
server, we shut down our websites and disconnected our server from the
Internet.  At the time that our websites were brought back up, we posted
messages on our website homepages describing why our site was down and that
we were investigating the cause of the file deletion.  As our investigation
has ended without conclusive information as to how the file was deleted or
whether an individual gained unlawful access to sensitive personal
information, we are now contacting all website members with our findings and
steps that they should take in case their sensitive personal information
was, in fact, unlawfully accessed. 

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