Quora, one of the largest question-and-answer portals on the Internet, announced today that hackers managed to gain access to its servers, stealing information from about 100 million users, representing almost half of the site's total number of users.
The company disclosed the breach today, but said it discovered the hack last Friday. Quora is still investigating the incident, but said it has already determined that the hackers had access to the following information:
- Account information (eg name, email address, encrypted passwords access, data imported from connected networks authorized by users.)
- Public content and actions (eg questions, answers, comments, upvotes)
- Non-public content and actions (eg requests replies, downvotes, direct messages)
"The vast majority of the content was already public on Quora, but the theft of accounts and other personal information is serious," said Adam D'Angelo, CEO of Quora.
“Questions and answers posted anonymously are not affected by the breach, as we do not store them identities of people posting anonymous content," he added.
"It is highly unlikely that this would result in identity theft, as we do not collect sensitive personal information such as credit cards or social security numbers," the company later added on a help page about the incident.
The website has already taken action, disconnecting all users who may have been affected. All users who used a password to log into their account will need to select a new one to log in.
Quora stated that it is at procedure updating all users it believes have been affected by the hack, and said that not all users were affected.
The website also said it has already taken steps to prevent any future unauthorized access to its servers. The company said it was still investigating the cause of the breach with a special team, and it notified the authorities immediately.
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