TaskRabbit was taken offline on April 16 while the company investigated what it described as “a cybersecurity incident.” The online marketplace, which matches people who have stuff that needs doing with skilled folks that can get the job done, went down and its team began looking into what happened.
Now, a few weeks later, TaskRabbit’s CEO, Stacy Brown-Philpot, has shed a bit more light on the incident in an email to users. Per Brown-Philpot’s email, seen by Digital Trends, the TaskRabbit team has been “working around the clock over the past few days investigating a cybersecurity incident.” The investigation is still ongoing, and preliminary evidence suggests that an “unauthorized user gained access” to the company’s systems.
Consequently, “certain personally identifiable information may have been compromised.” TaskRabbit is now urging users to monitor accounts for any suspicious activity and to change their passwords. If your TaskRabbit password is used on any other website, you should change those login credentials as well. In the meantime, TaskRabbit says that it has a third-party forensics team “working diligently to determine what information may have been compromised, and will notify every affected individual.”
To ensure that similar incidents do not recur, TaskRabbit says that it’s implementing additional security measures, including resetting all user passwords, evaluating data retention practices to reduce the amount of data the company stores, and enhacing overall network cyber threat detection technology.
“Our Taskers and Clients are the lifeblood of our business,” Brown-Philpot continued. “We care deeply about our community and are committed to being a better neighbor. With our website and apps back online, we hope you will give us the opportunity to regain your trust.”
TaskRabbit will continue to offer more comprehensive updates and we will be sure to include the details here as and when the information comes in. In the meantime, you can check out TaskRabbit’s FAQ about the incident, which it promises to be updating regularly.
TaskRabbit was founded in 2008 and is believed to have more than a million users across 40 U.S. cities, as well as London in the U.K.
Ikea acquired the business in September 2017. Jesper Brodin, president and CEO of Ikea Group, said at the time that his company would be able to “learn from TaskRabbit’s digital expertise, while also providing Ikea customers additional ways to access flexible and affordable service solutions to meet the needs of today’s customer.”
The two companies recently partnered on a new speedy service that offers customers help with Ikea furniture assembly.
Updated on May 7: TaskRabbit’s CEO sent users an email with more information about the breach.
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