Quora says hackers stole up to 100 million user data
Quora said it discovered last week that hackers broke into their systems and managed to get rid of data of up to 100 million users. These data could include user name, email address and an encrypted version of the password. If a user imported data from another social network, such as their contacts or demographic information, it may also have been taken.
Some private actions on the site may have been taken as well. It includes requests for answers, downvotes and direct messages. Content posted anonymously should remain anonymous, but Quora says that it does not store identifiable information for these posts.
"The overwhelming majority of content that was opened was already public on Quora, but compromise of account and other private information is serious," wrote Quora CEO Adam D & Angelo in a blog post tonight. The company also sends out e-mail to affected users.
Quora says it has announced law enforcement and hired a digital forensics firm to investigate what happened. For now, it only reveals that a "malicious third party" was able to get "unauthorized access to one of our systems" and that it detected a break on Friday.
By 100 million users this is a very significant violation and one that probably represents a large part of Quora's registered users. By 2015, D & # 39; Angelo said that the site received 200 million unique visitors each month, which is likely to come mainly from search traffic.
D & # 39; Angelo says that Quora tries to "contain the incident" and prevent another violation from occurring. "We are working fast to further investigate the situation and take the necessary precautions to prevent such incidents in the future."
Large-scale data break has been an unfortunately common occurrence in recent years, when large databases of information built up over the years and years, the break and hackers are able to pull large turns away at the same time. Just last week, Marriott broke out personal information of up to 500 million guests; In September, a hacker collected personal information from up to 29 million Facebook accounts.
