Here’s one thing you really kind of need from a cloud storage operation: security. I mean, you’re putting your files up there — photos, videos, important documents, that term paper from college, whatever – under the assumption that those things will be safe. Well, Dropbox, as you may have read in the headline has done got hacked. The situation came to light after customers noticed they were receiving spam at email addresses used only for their Dropbox accounts. That led to an internal investigation, the results of which the company revealed yesterday.
From the company’s blog:
Our investigation found that usernames and passwords recently stolen from other websites were used to sign in to a small number of Dropbox accounts. We’ve contacted these users and have helped them protect their accounts.
A stolen password was also used to access an employee Dropbox account containing a project document with user email addresses. We believe this improper access is what led to the spam.
The company goes on to discuss steps that it’s taking to prevent this in the future and also suggestions for how customers can better protect themselves.
TechCrunch says:
Naturally, it appears that this issue is one in which both sides are somewhat culpable. On its end, Dropbox is taking steps to improve security, and meanwhile, it suggests that users consider coming up with a unique password for each website they use. Reusable passwords, again, are not your friend. As Dropbox points out, “though it’s easy to reuse the same password on different websites, this means if any one site is compromised, all your accounts are at risk.”
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