Flipboard Hack Prompts Password Reset for Tens of millions of Customers
Flipboard has been focused by hackers, prompting the corporate carry out a password reset for its neighborhood of round 145 million customers.
Upon studying of the hack, the Palo Alto, California-based firm knowledgeable legislation enforcement and in addition contacted an exterior safety agency. Investigators confirmed that hackers had “accessed and probably obtained copies of sure databases containing Flipboard consumer info” between June 2, 2018 and March 23, 2019, and in addition on April 21 and 22, 2019.
Stolen info included some customers’ account info that included names, Flipboard usernames, cryptographically protected passwords, and e-mail addresses.
Flipboard used a method known as “salted hashing” to enhance the safety of customers’ passwords, and the corporate confirmed that no passwords had been saved in plain textual content.
It mentioned, nonetheless, that as a precautionary measure it had determined to reset all customers’ passwords.
“If you entry your Flipboard account from a brand new system, or the following time you log into Flipboard after logging out of your account, you’ll be requested to create a brand new password,” the corporate defined in a message on a particular webpage providing updates on the safety breach. In case your authentic Flipboard password is similar for every other on-line companies that you simply use, you’re urged to alter it for these companies, too.
The corporate added that if anybody related their Flipboard account to a third-party account — together with social media accounts — then the databases could have contained digital tokens for connecting their Flipboard account to that third-party account. The corporate mentioned it hasn’t discovered any proof of the hackers accessing any third-party account related to customers’ Flipboard accounts. However, erring on the facet of warning, it has determined to exchange or delete all digital tokens, which means you’ll need to reconnect Flipboard to these companies. Particulars on how to take action will be discovered on this Flipboard webpage, which additionally accommodates an in depth FAQ part associated to the breach.
Flipboard mentioned it’s nonetheless figuring out exactly which consumer accounts had been caught up within the hack. It was additionally eager to level out that it holds no info similar to Social Safety numbers, checking account, bank card, or different monetary info, and subsequently such knowledge was not concerned within the hack.
The corporate promised that it’s already applied “enhanced safety measures” to stop the same type of incident from occurring sooner or later.
Flipboard is simply the newest in a string of on-line safety incidents which have come to gentle in latest months, with Fb, 500px, and Quora amongst these focused.
