[Leica] OT: Is this a Sophisticated Phishing Attempt?

[hewthompson at mac.com (Hugh Thompson)]

WARNING - this came to the mailbox I use for the LUG.  Never seen this  
type of issue before, but others may have.  Checked Ars Technica web  
sites at:

http://arstechnica.com/
http://arstechnica.com/apple/

..... without clicking on the link below, the open forum does not have  
an immediate heads up.  Do you think the site has been compromised?

Hugh

Begin forwarded message:

> From: civis at arstechnica.com
> Date: April 30, 2010 8:34:33 PM GMT+04:30
> To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
> Subject: Alert: Old forum provider compromised, private registration  
> emails harvested
> Reply-To: civis at arstechnica.com
>
> The following is an e-mail sent to you by an administrator of "Ars  
> Technica
> OpenForum". If this message is spam, contains abusive or other  
> comments you
> find offensive please contact the webmaster of the board at the  
> following
> address:
>
> civis at arstechnica.com
>
> Include this full e-mail (particularly the headers).
>
> Message sent to you follows:
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Hello,
>
> You are receiving this message because you have a registered an Ars
> Technica account with this email address.
>
> Our previous forum provider (Social Strata, formerly known as  
> Groupee and
> Infopop) had a server hacked recently, and has advised us that private
> registration email addresses were harvested.  These included email
> addresses for anyone who registered with Ars Technica while we were  
> still
> using their services.  In addition, the rooted server was used to  
> send out
> at least one mass phishing attempt.
>
> Although Groupee/Social Strata tells us that no password information  
> of any
> kind was accessible from that server, we still recommend that you  
> change
> your Ars Technica password (and any account on a third party site  
> you use
> that password with) just to be safe.
>
> We became aware of this issue this morning and are following up with
> Groupee/Social Strata to see if we can get more details and  
> assurances on
> the scope of the compromise.  We have also requested that they purge  
> all
> Ars Technica data from their systems so future problems don't affect  
> our
> users.
>
> We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.  If you  
> would like
> to read further updates on this issue, please see the active  
> announcement
> we have in our new forums:
> http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1108748
>
> Please contact us with any questions.
>
> Thanks,
> Kurt Mackey
> Technical Directory, Ars Technica
>
>
> --

hewthompson at mac.com
Kabul, Afghanistan