Dear BrickLink members,

Welcome back and thank you for your patience. We were down for longer than anyone would have wanted. Now that we’re back up and running, we can share with you what has happened.

As many of you know, we received a threat and ransom demand on Friday, November 3rd. We’d been aware of and actively managing some limited suspicious activity since mid-October, with unauthorized sellers offering products at huge discounts and fraudulently accepting payment from buyers.

As soon as we were aware of the potential escalation on November 3rd, we put the site into maintenance mode out of caution. We did this to protect our members and keep complete control of the platform while investigating.

We found that a relatively small number of BrickLink accounts may have been accessed. It is important to note that there is no evidence that our systems have been compromised so far. At this stage, we believe this was a ‘credential stuffing’ incident, where someone obtains lists of usernames and passwords from a third party, often illegally, and opportunistically tries to use them on a website.

Although we know that the BrickLink site was not breached, we’ve further
strengthened our security. We take the safety of BrickLink and our members very seriously and will continue to step up security across the platform.

We’ve informed people where we have reason to believe that their accounts or stores may have been impacted and reminded members of ways they can make their accounts safer and more secure by practicing good data security. Keep your systems up-to-date with the latest patches, use security software, and create strong, unique passwords for each website you use.

Again, we’re sorry for the interruption and inconvenience this has caused you. If you have any questions or concerns, have a look at the FAQ for more details, or reach out to customersupport@bricklink.com.