50 million LivingSocial users become more social than expected

The daily deals site suffered a massive hack that touched tens of millions of customers in nearly all the countries where it conducts business. The compromise exposed customer names, emails, birthdates and encrypted passwords. Officials said customer and merchant financial information is safe. Emails describing the impact went out to employees on Friday and similar messages are expected to soon arrive in user inboxes. All customers must reset their passwords.

The email from CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy to personnel read:  

“We recently experienced a cyber-attack on our computer systems that resulted in unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers. We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue.

. . . Because we anticipate a high call volume and may not be able to answer or return all calls in a responsible fashion, we are likely to temporarily suspend consumer phone-based servicing. We will be devoting all available resources to our web-based servicing.”