Flipboard Databases Hacked 4b6l6r Information of s Exposed

Flipboard says hackers gained access to some of its databases between June 2, 2018, and March 23, 2019, as well as on April 21 and April 22, 2019. n2668

By Jagmeet Singh | Updated: 29 May 2019 11:33 IST

Flipboard Databases Hacked, Information of s Exposed

Flipboard has sent an email to all its s to inform them about the security incident 445347

Highlights

Flipboard has posted a security incident notice on its website
Total number of affected s is uncertain
However, Flipboard is still investigating the security loopholes

ment

Popular news aggregator platform Flipboard has disclosed that its databases containing information of certain s have been hacked. The data that was potentially ed several times over a nine-month period ending on April 22 included credentials, the Palo Alto, California-based company revealed in an email sent to all Flipboard s. A security incident notice has also been published on the Flipboard website to reveal the details of the data breach. The total number of affected s is uncertain. However, as a precautionary measure, the company has reset s of all its about 150 million s, including the s that were cryptographically protected.

In an email sent to its s, a copy of which is with Gadgets 360, Flipboard reveals that it found that the hackers gained access to some of its databases containing Flipboard information between June 2, 2018, and March 23, 2019, as well as on April 21 and April 22, 2019. "The databases involved may have contained your name, Flipboard name, cryptographically protected , and email address," the company said in the email.

The security incident that particularly took place between April 21 and 22 was discovered on April 23, when Flipboard's engineers were investigating the suspicious activity that occurred on March 23.

"Our engineering team became aware of the incident after identifying suspicious activity in the environment where the databases reside," the company stated in the notice on its website.

The total number of s being affected through the data breach is uncertain. However, Flipboard ensures that "not all Flipboard s' information was involved in the incident" and as a precaution, all s' s have been reset.

Flipboard also highlights that the vast majority of s that were potentially ed by the hackers during the security failure were hashed using bcrypt. For the s who haven't changed their since March 14, 2012, the company protected their s using SHA-1 encryption.

Since many of the affected s might have used digital tokens to to Flipboard using their credentials from Twitter among other sites, Flipboard has rotated all the existing digital tokens. Nevertheless, the company is still allowing s to access their Flipboard using third-party sources such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.

"To help prevent something like this from happening in the future, we implemented enhanced security measures and continue to look for additional ways to strengthen the security of our systems," the company said without revealing any specific details due to security reasons.

Additionally, Flipboard mentioned that it informed law enforcement about the unauthorised access and involved an external security firm to investigate the flaw.

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