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.
hello @TaskRabbit I don't believe this is your website but this is what I get when I try to visit your website HELP pic.twitter.com/qSrEGEdA1q
— some guy (@catalanawinemxr) April 16, 2018
Task Rabbit phishing attack. Emails sent out pointing to website which, for a time, revealed @TaskRabbit's private Github, daily transaction volumes, key employee information. @TaskRabbit you need to look into this right now. I believe my account has been compromised. pic.twitter.com/RcT6WXhW6l
— Sam Rad 👾 (@SamRadocchia) April 16, 2018
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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