Etsy said a spam message posted to its Announcement Board was the result of human error, not a hacking incident. The message had aroused fears from users of a possible hack, since only Etsy employees are announced to post messages to the announcement section of its discussion boards.
Etsy spokesperson Nikki Summer followed up on our inquiry about the incident on Tuesday with the following statement:
After investigating, we’re pleased to say that the Announcements section was not hacked. In the process of deleting this spam thread from the Questions section, an Etsy employee inadvertently moved it to the Announcements section. We look at mistakes as learning opportunities, and we’re taking all precautions to prevent something like this from happening again, as protecting our community is our utmost priority.
The incident occurred after a series of “spam slam” attacks in which Etsy’s forums were flooded with Korean-language spam.
