Mumsnet data breach - please read

I don't think anyone is denying that things posted on an Internet forum isn't private.

What should be kept private is email addresses, full names, personal messages etc. No excuses.

As far as I'm aware, no one pays to use MN. Why do they "owe" us anything? They do their best but there's always going to be a security risk. It's naïve to believe otherwise. You share your privacy at your own risk.

Sounds like a get out clause for mn and substandard security

Any account, be it bank, health records, Facebook, MN, whatever that is on the Internet can potentially be hacked. There is no such thing as guaranteed privacy or security on the Internet.

Like the previous breach, I did believe my log in details were secure, yes. I was very surprised to find my email address and password were published online for all to see. Would this not surprise you?

Shivering, does it not surprise you that someone could potentially have logged into your account? Do you think that is normal on the internet then? Would you be happy enough if someone could log on to your facebook, email, internet banking?

Whilst I think this thread has gone a bit far, it does seem odd to suggest that breaches like this are normal.

It’s public but no you wouldn’t expect the security to be so bad what has happened happens

There’s a lot of people posting sensitive stuff on here

Ok make it obvious no one should

But it's common knowledge that anything posted on a public forum, or on the internet in general, is not secure. Surely everyone knows that?

privatedoor I agree users need to know that they can not trust MN to keep their data safe. But I understand why users have trusted MN.

No I don’t think it’s on the users for this in any way

Also, people need to learn about helping themselves. If they HAVE given out personal info, then maybe this will prevent them doing it again. I was one of the people who had their passwords and email addresses published last time and it was a massive wake up call because numpty here used the same password for everything!!! So it was a massive breech for me. Obviously I learned a massive lesson from it and use unique and weird random passwords now for everything!

Not good enough, on multiple counts. I have only just now seen this thread. I've received no email, so I would not have known otherwise.

I posted about this earlier, this thread doesn't really stand out so is easily missed. There really does need to be another way to alert users, something much more in your face, such as a pop up, to make sure everyone is aware.

shiveringtimber People share personal info in DMs. I know posters like AnyFucker have supported abused women through DMs. Those DMs, alongside email addresses, are very personal information.

Someone has just posted this on reddit. Is this true MN?

*I'm concerned that I've had an email from Mumsnet about this matter but not sent to the email that is registered with my Mumsnet account and to which Mumsnet have always sent emails before. They have sent an email to my hotmail account which I don't use for Mumsnet - what is happening here?

If you've never used that email in any comms with MN, the only explanation is data linking via one of the third party vendors they use.

If that’s what’s happened it’s a VERY big deal, and absolutely illegal. You need to follow up on that as a matter of urgency, because it’s capable of linking your account here to almost any other online presence you have.*

What sort of security risk are we talking about?

Not good enough, on multiple counts. I have only just now seen this thread.
I've received no email, so I would not have known otherwise. This kind of thing has happened too many times with Mumsnet now. This is such a serious matter.

Also, I'm not going to trawl through hundreds of posts for a full picture. Can you contact me to tell me if my account was affected.

Each time it’s offhand sorry, gin and tea and won’t happen again. Until it does

If people shouldn’t trust this site they can put a big sticky saying we are not secure as this site does lead people to posting personal stuff

Claire I don't see me blaming anyone, calm down! I simply asked was their number even there, and a poster replied nope it wasn't. Therefore it seems odd to be blaming MN on cold calling when MN didn't actually have their number? I feel there is a bit of hysteria here which is upsetting some posters, some rational thought is needed.

PrivateDoor MN attracts people who may not post on any other forum. MN is a large site, not a kitchen sink type site. So yes some people will have given very personal information as they trusted that MN would protect that information. I know they were wrong, but don't blame users for trusting MN.

No I didn't

But its awfully coincidental ... especially as these numbers are different from the usual cold calls.

If they accessed my email it's possible somewhere I'm not sure. I post from my phone

MN I know before when you are suspicious about someone you send them an email. You have said that you find trolls tend to use email accounts that they do not use for anything else.
But I and others who did use personal email accounts are now deregistering and setting up an email account purely for MN, because of the data breach.
So I suspect a lot more genuine posters will be wrongly banned if they post for support about something genuine, but that might sound like a troll. So for example someone posting distressed because their babies poo nappy has exploded, may now seem like the poo troll. Whereas before you would have looked and seen that they have been posting for 6 years about their 3 kids, so seems totally genuine.

If you are then I'm afraid you really do not understand the situation

I do this for a living. So do many others on this site.

I know exactly how reasonable my expectations are - they are that a large commercial site with a massive userbase and significant banks of sensitive information test their bloody software and have a proper Breach Protocol and security support model in place.

People concerned about phone calls - did you really have your phone number on your profile?

The numbers mad

Anything strange about them?

@NellMumsnet

We're also going through this thread to tackle individual account questions and are mostly contacting you directly rather than replying on the thread. But we will add any answers that would be useful to other people to the FAQs

That is reasonable but please ensure all answers get published unless they involve personal information. Some of these issues will very likely affect multiple users and they will need to know to check eg the iCloud keychain issue