Hackers have reportedly gained access to nearly 7 million Dropbox accounts and are offering more details in exchange for Bitcoins.
Online security breaches are getting more common with hackers gaining unauthorized access to millions of accounts of different services. In one such breach, nearly 7 million Dropbox users' login credentials have been compromised and hundreds of them posted on Pastebin. Hackers have promised to release more password details in exchange for Bitcoin donations. However, Dropbox has denied any such breach on its servers.
In an official Dropbox blog, the online storage company assured that the login credentials of hundreds and thousands of users were "stolen from unrelated services, not Dropbox."
"Attackers then used these stolen credentials to try to log in to sites across the internet, including Dropbox," Anton Mityagin, a Dropbox security engineer, wrote in the company's blog on Monday. "We have measures in place to detect suspicious login activity and we automatically reset passwords when it happens."
An anonymous post on Pastebin.com showed data containing 400 usernames and passwords, claiming to be the first batch of 6,937,081 hacked Dropbox accounts, CNET reported. Additionally, the hackers threatened to release photos, videos and other files stored on Dropbox cloud servers. An updated statement on the Dropbox Blog said the login credentials released by the hackers "are not associated with Dropbox accounts."
Either ways, the company has been forced to request reset of passwords of the accounts listed on Pastebin and suggests the remainder users also change their account passwords.
To ensure safety of online accounts, it is recommended to use unique passwords with a combination of letters, numbers and special characters (wherever supported). Using different passwords for different accounts ensures added security in case any one account has been compromised. Dropbox also offers two-factor authentication, which can be activated from the security settings page, for better security of the accounts.
