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 millions users, representing almost half of the total number of users of the website.
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, address e-mail, encrypted passwords, data entered 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 the identities of people who post anonymous content," he added.
“It is extremely unlikely that this event will lead to theft identity, 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 said it is in the process informationof all the users it believes were 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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