100 million Quora users’ data compromised after massive hack

Question and answer website Quora has become the latest high-profile hack victim, after a third party made off with the account details of 100 million users.

Quora announced the hack on Monday, claiming that the company want to “be as transparent as possible”.

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It said: “On Friday we discovered that some user data was compromised by a third party who gained unauthorized access to one of our systems.” The company added that it is investigating the hack, and that its own internal security team will be working in tandem with a digital forensics and security firm in order to get to the bottom of the matter.

User IDs, email addresses, names, data imported from linked networks when authorised by users, public content and actions have been compromised. 

Actions and non-public content and actions, including answer requests and direct messages are also affected, though Quora claims that a “low percentage of Quora users have sent or received such messages”.

Passwords were pilfered too, although they were fully encrypted, hashed with a salt that is unique for each user. It means that even if a password was stolen, it’s probably still safe.

You should still reset your password, though. Quora is logging out all users that it thinks may have been affected, and is pushing a password reset too.

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Unfortunately, getting your details stolen in a hack is a standard part of living online in the current day. However, this does serve as a reminder to reset your passwords on a regular basis, and to change any that you might use for several different accounts.

You can also look at security site Have I Been Pwned?, which will tell you which, if any, breaches may have affected you.

Did you use Quora? How has this breach affected you? Give us a shout on Twitter @TrustedReviews.