UPDATED 21:47 EDT / APRIL 16 2018

INFRA

Ikea-owned handyman service TaskRabbit offline following ‘cybersecurity incident’

Handyman-for-hire marketplace TaskRabbit Inc., acquired by flat-pack furniture retailer IKEA Group in September, is offline.

The company told customers that it’s investigating a “cybersecurity incident.” Exactly what has occurred is not clear at this stage, but TaskRabbit took down both its website and its mobile app as a precaution, saying on Twitter that it’s working with an outside cybersecurity firm and law enforcement to determine the specifics.

“As an immediate precaution, if you used the same password on other sites or apps as you did for TaskRabbit, we recommend you change those now,” the company told customers. it also told CNet that it regrets “any inconvenience this may cause our clients and Taskers, and will reschedule any uncompleted tasks as soon as possible. For any Tasker who had a task scheduled today and is unable to complete the task, we will compensate them appropriately.”

All signs point to a hack, with customers posting images showing the TaskRabbit site defaced prior to it being taken offline. In one tweet, a user shows the main page being redirected to the company’s GitHub page, while another tweet shows the main page being redirected to a WordPress site.

The WordPress site, wh1ter0sem4v.wordpress.com, is a reference to an episode title from Mr. Robot, a show about computer hacking.

TaskRabbit, which operates in 40 U.S. cities and in London, had about 1.25 million users as of 2015, meaning that the number affected by the “cybersecurity incident” is likely multiple times higher than that.

Photo: TaskRabbit

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