Rootsweb updates users on security breach

A new update from Rootsweb  (http://rootsweb.com), following the recent security breach of the platform:

Update: January 9, 2018

We have spent the last few weeks reviewing the functionality on RootsWeb and have created a plan to bring many of your contributions back online over the next few months. As we stated before, our first priority is security, and ensuring that every part of RootsWeb meets our stringent security standards. Our next priority is getting you, the users of RootsWeb and its services, access to your content.

Right now, the best way for us to meet both goals is to begin bringing portions of RootsWeb back online in a read-only state. This means you will have access to content, but you will not be able to load new content in these sections. While this may not be ideal, it is the best way for us to protect RootsWeb users while also providing the ability to use the content you value. This is an interim step while we continue to evaluate the potential for bringing more of the RootsWeb services back online in a more complete manner.

Here’s our current plan:

Hosted Web Sites: Soon we will begin bringing Hosted Web Sites back online. We will start with a few hundred and then add more over time, giving us a chance to scan the content.

Family Trees/WorldConnect: Family Trees or WorldConnect allows you to upload a GEDCOM file and publish it for others to see. It is currently being reviewed by our software engineers and security team and we plan on having a read-only, searchable version up in the next few weeks. The ability to upload new GEDCOM files will be available in the coming months.

Mailing Lists: Mailing Lists have been functioning as normal, but the archives have been unavailable. We plan to make the archives available to you once we have WorldConnect available to you in a readable version.

We will be making decisions about other functionality over time.

We appreciate your patience as we bring the different pieces of RootsWeb back online in a secure manner. You, our contributors and viewers, are what has made RootsWeb the vibrant free genealogy community it is.

The RootsWeb Team

(With thanks to Wendy Archer from Oxfordshire FHS)

Chris

For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

Ancestry's Rootsweb platform security is breached

Ancestry's Rootsweb platform (http://home.rootsweb.ancestry.com/) has had its security breached, affecting some 300,000 members. Whilst no credit card information is used or stored for the platform, a very small number of users (about 55,000) have the same log in details for both their Rootsweb and Ancestry accounts. Ancestry is advising that it is contacting all affected users - if you are one of those affected you will have to reset your account before you can use it again.

As a consequence of the breach, Ancestry has temporarily taken Rootsweb offline to try to make sure that all hosted data is saved. The company states that "as RootsWeb is a free and open community that has been largely built by its users, we may not be able to salvage everything as we work to resolve this issue and enhance the RootsWeb infrastructure."

For more on the story visit Ancestry's description of events at https://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2017/12/23/rootsweb-security-update/.

Chris

Needing a Christmas present for a family history obsessed love one (or for yourself)?! For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

Rootsweb temporarily down

The Rootsweb website (www.rootsweb.ancestry.com), including  all of the mailing lists that it facilitates, is closed temporarily, with the homepage showing the following:

"We're currently experiencing a temporary website outage due to Rootsweb hardware failure. Rest assured, our development and web operations teams are busy working to securely restore the site as quickly as possible. Our initial expectation is to have the site back up and running on or around March 15, 2016. We apologize for the disruption and thank-you for your patience. We will provide other updates here as we have them."

(With thanks to Louise Gibson from Burnie, Tasmania, for letting me know)

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including A Decade of Irish Centenaries: Researching Ireland 1912-1923, Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition), Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.