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back to article Kids’ shoes seller Start-rite suspends sales following breach

Children’s shoes retailer Start-rite Shoes has suspended sales following the discovery of an attack by hackers last weekend. UK-based Start-rite reckons hackers may have obtained customer names, postal address, telephone number and email address of its clients. Payment details are not stored on the site and therefore should …

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  1. Swarthy
    Coat

    So after the crims put the slipper in, their customers got the boot? And now they are trying to sneaker in a repair, but it's taking tennis times longer than expected.

    If they didn't salt & hash their passwords, their Web Dev team should be sent to the trainers: their site was already brogan.

    3 0 Reply
  2. Richard Jones 1
    Happy

    Shoed along

    I can see you buckled down and laced up your response very well.

    3 0 Reply
    1. Swarthy
      Reply Icon
      Facepalm

      Re: Shoed along

      Ugg, I slipped up and forgot a few - So I thought I'd chukka them out here.

      3 0 Reply
  3. Dieter Haussmann

    Croc of shit.

    1 0 Reply
  4. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    "This isn’t terribly reassuring"

    At least the leak is confined to the purchase, not the product. "In the event of wet weather, socks should be dried on a radiator" would worry me more. (Good ol' Start Rite - they still use the logo I remember seeing on the tube as a child).

    0 0 Reply
  5. The Nazz

    Anyone for a flip flop? ;-)

    Just saying.

    Presumably that youngster being "used" in the ad has given their informed consent?

    0 1 Reply
  6. Jan 0 Silver badge
    Pint

    Norwich Based?

    They may have started in Norwich, they may still have an office just outside Norwich, but surely a manufacturing company that does all its manufacturing in India has to be called "India Based" (c.f .Dyson.)

    I won't deny that they make excellent children's shoes.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: "India Based" (c.f .Dyson.)

      Does that make Apple a Chinese-based company?

      0 0 Reply
  7. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Childcatcher

    Lawyer speak

    "A simple statement that passwords were hashed and salted used industry best practices would have been more reassuring."

    If the passwords are secure by being hashed and salted, that's probably what the IT guys said. But then the PR people would complain than 99.9% of their customers wouldn't understand what that meant, so it was dumbed down. Then the lawyers got involved and asked "is ther any risk, no matter how slight, that passwords might be compromised". Anyone in security (or science) is loath to use words like "no chance", "impossible" etc, so yes, there is a risk, no matter how small. The the lawyers write the PR release and arse-covering "advice" to change passwords.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Jim Cosser
      Reply Icon

      Re: Lawyer speak

      I get your point but I think it's over egged. A statement to say they are secure would be meaningless I agree, but that wasn't what was proposed, industry best practice salted and hashed is different from the statement 'they are secure', but it's also a huge improvement on not giving any details in that area.

      Recommendations to change if re-used elsewhere would be issued anyway as you point out, why not?

      As we know it's all about time and effort to crack rather than it being impossible to break.

      0 0 Reply
  8. wolfetone Silver badge

    Startrite asking people to change passwords is more to do with what you would expect to do in such an event, rather than the hackers actually getting hold of those passwords. Imagine the stink if Startrite didn't ask you to change your password after they'd been hacked?

    However, to me, whats more shocking about this is that they didn't say it was a sophisticated attack and that they take customer security very seriously as a priority.

    1 0 Reply

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