Why did I get an email about Epik Data Breach?
The Queen’s IT Services Security team recently became aware of a September 2021 data breach at Epik, a domain registrar and web host. This event may have potentially affected multiple accounts here at Queen’s. As a precaution, Queen’s IT Services will expire the passwords of any Queen’s account found to be listed on the breached Epik accounts list and who have not changed their passwords since September 13, 2021.

What should I do to protect myself?
If you received an email message from IT Services concerning the breach and have not changed your password since September 13, 2021 you will be sent additional emails requesting you to change your password, prior to your password expiring. NetID passwords are changed at https://netid.queensu.ca/selfservice/login/auth

We also encourage you to take the following actions to better protect yourself and your information:

• Do not reuse passwords across your accounts.


• If you have used your Queen’s password on multiple sites, we strongly encourage you to change that password on every other site where it has been used.


• Be extra diligent of scams that may reference your Epik account.

What data was compromised?
According to reports, personal information including email addresses, names, phone numbers, physical addresses, and purchases were all exposed.

Why is Queen’s expiring passwords for potentially breached accounts?
Queen’s account holders who fail to follow safe password practices are at risk when breaches like this occur. To protect your Queen’s account IT Services are taking this action to prevent account compromises by ensuring all accounts associated with the breach have refreshed passwords since September 13, 2021.

What caused the data breach?
We have no direct information from Epik about the cause of the breach. IT Services obtain breach information from the service called “Have I Been Pwned?” . Visiting the website https://haveibeenpwned.com/ will allow you to enter and check your Queen’s University email address against all publicized breaches that reference your Queen’s email address. The site also provides details about the data breach, including links to additional information.