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Hackers steal user data from Kickstarter

Cyber goons have hacked into the popular online fundraising web site Kickstarter, but the online donation site insists no credit card information was stolen.

Hackers swiped  “usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords,”  CEO Yancey Strickler told users in a mass email.

“On Wednesday night, law enforcement officials contacted Kickstarter and alerted us that hackers had sought and gained unauthorized access to some of our customers’ data,” Strickler said.

“Upon learning this, we immediately closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures throughout the Kickstarter system.”

Kickstarter supporters with simple  passwords should change them, officials said.

“Actual passwords were not revealed, however it is possible for a malicious person with enough computing power to guess and crack an encrypted password, particularly a weak or obvious one,” Strickler said.

Three million donors opened their wallets to $480 million to various projects  in 2013, according to Kickstarter.

The site promised to upgrade security in the wake of this humiliating cyber breach.

“We set a very high bar for how we serve our community, and this incident is frustrating and upsetting,” Strickler wrote.

“We have since improved our security procedures and systems in numerous ways, and we will continue to do so in the weeks and months to come. We are working closely with law enforcement, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this from happening again.”

Additional reporting by Tara Palmeri