Another day, another online security breach. Flipboard today notified its users to notify them of a security breach that saw usernames, email addresses, and protected passwords accessed by hackers.
What happened
We recently identified unauthorized access to some of our databases containing certain Flipboard users’ account information, including account credentials. In response to this discovery, we immediately launched an investigation and an external security firm was engaged to assist. Findings from the investigation indicate an unauthorized person accessed and potentially obtained copies of certain databases containing Flipboard user information between June 2, 2018 and March 23, 2019 and April 21 – 22, 2019.
The company did not share details on how many accounts were compromised. The accessed databases included Flipboard usernames, names, email addresses, and passwords. The good news, of there is any, is that the passwords were salted and hashed, meaning they weren’t in plaintext like some recent data breaches saw, meaning they’ll be difficult to crack.
The digital tokens used to connect Flipboard accounts to third party services like Twitter or Facebook were also included, that is if users had connected the accounts to the social media networks.
Flipboard says it is resetting all user passwords and replacing or deleting all digital tokens. Users will need to reconnect their accounts if they had connected them to Twitter or Facebook.
To help prevent something like this from happening in the future, the firm says it has implemented enhanced security measures and continues to look for additional ways to strengthen the security of their systems. They also notified law enforcement.
The company recommends that users who use the same username and password they created for Flipboard for any other online service change their password there, too.