A bug in NATS back-end affiliate software allowed webmasters to view the admin referrer’s page of a large portion of the company’s clients this weekend.
The problem was corrected in less than an hour, and clients were sent an email detailing the fix, NATS co-founder, John Albright, tells AVNOnline.com. That, however, didn’t stop the industry drama machine.
“There was a bug in the system and someone found out about it and decided to go post it on GFY rather than come to us with it,” Albright says.
While clients were unamused with the bug, Albright insisted that no important information got out.
“A lot of people are coming to me saying people had full admin access to my install. That is not the case. It was just the admin referrer’s page.”
The page in question, which showed the default two-week time frame, lists referring URLs and the number of sales generated by each.
“The data that was exposed was of minimal importance as far as data goes. It wasn’t actual affiliate info, it wasn’t actual sales data, and nobody saw anything as far as rebills go, retention, or customer data. It was of minimal importance and everyone is patched,” Albright says.
NATS has experienced similar bugs or integration issues in the past and so have similar software providers, which speaks to the nature of the beast.
“Data was leaked. I’m sure customers are not happy with their number of joins and conversions being public, but NATS, Executive Stats, and MPA3 are all huge pieces of software,” says Brad Shaw, owner of Shaw Internet and developer of competing Executive Stats. “Shit happens. I’m sure my software is not perfect.”
