Netgalley is a company that specializes in sending out early editions of ebooks and audiobooks for people to review, when it is close to the publication date. This is why you will often see your favorite bloggers or newspapers post a synopsis before the book is even released. Netgalley has announced that for the first time they were hacked and all user account information was stolen, such as user names, passwords and addresses. The company is prompting people to change their password the next time they login to their website or app.
They have sent out emails to users and also made a post on their website, with a FAQ. They stated “It is with great regret that we inform you that on Monday, December 21, 2020 NetGalley was the victim of a data security incident. What initially seemed like a simple defacement of our homepage has, with further investigation, resulted in the unauthorized and unlawful access to a backup file of the NetGalley database.
It is with an abundance of caution that we wanted to let you know this incident may have exposed some of the information you have shared with NetGalley.
The backup file that was impacted contained your Profile information, which includes your login name and password, name and email address. Also, if supplied by you, your mailing address, birthday, company name, and Kindle email address. We currently have no evidence of the exposure of any of this data, but we cannot at this stage rule out the possibility. We expect that you may have many additional questions–below are the questions we would have if we received this email.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.