Lego's BrickLink marketplace taken offline after 'unusual activity' on the platform

Marketplace taken offline, no date given for its return

Lego has taken BrickLink offline — an online marketplace for buying and selling sets, individual parts and minifigures that has been called the 'eBay for Lego' — after detecting 'unusual activity on the platform'. This was reported by BBC News and Euronews. According to the BBC, the site had already been down for three days at the time of publication, and earlier the page displayed a maintenance notice. Euronews notes that as of 12 November the marketplace remains unavailable: the homepage says it is 'temporarily unavailable', with no date given for its return. Earlier the site said the platform would be back online by Wednesday evening, but that message was removed.

What Lego says and what remains unknown

Lego has not clarified whether a hack or a customer data breach occurred. In a statement published on the homepage and quoted by the Jay's Brick Blog community, the company said that before restoring the service it wants to 'fully understand' what happened: 'locate the problem, find out how it arose, and check for related issues'. The BBC notes that Lego published the update after journalists reached out. Euronews writes that the incident has raised suspicions of a cyberattack, but neither publication provides any confirmation of this.

Payment glitch and users' reaction

At the same time, users ran into payment problems. Cybersecurity specialist Melanie Hoskin, who has been collecting Lego for 45 years, told the BBC that after paying for a pre-order of a limited-edition release she received several repeated payment links. According to her, Lego did not believe the payment had gone through and at one point threatened to block her on BrickLink; she said she felt accused of theft. The BBC reports that this issue has already been resolved, and Lego said it was not aware of any broader payment problems. It remains unclear whether the payment glitch is connected to the reason the site was taken offline.

What experts advise

Xavier Bellekens, CEO of the company Lupovis, commenting to Euronews, called the incident a reminder that cybercriminals target not only banks and critical infrastructure: marketplaces are attractive to attackers for their access to accounts, which can be used for fraud, and for personal data that can be used for phishing. He also noted that taking the platform offline is a sensible precaution, but every additional day of downtime hurts the finances of the sellers who depend on it. Bellekens advised users to be especially wary of emails supposedly sent by BrickLink — particularly those asking to reset a password, confirm payment details, or switch to an 'alternative marketplace'.

Image source, Reuters