Quora Says 100 Million Users Breached in Security Incident

The names, email addresses and passwords of 100 million users of Quora have been made vulnerable.

• By Sydny Shepard
• Dec 05, 2018

About 100 million users of Quora were affected by unauthorized access to one of its systems by a "malicious third party," the website said earlier this week.

Account information, including name, email address, encrypted password and data imported from linked networks when authorized by users may have been compromised. The company said it is logging out all Quora users who may have been affected to prevent any further damage.

"We are in the process of notifying users whose data has been compromised," Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo said in a blog post. 

The breach was discovered last week and did not affect the question and answers that are written anonymously, the company said. 

"We have retained a leading digital forensics and security firm to assist us," the company said. Quora has also notified law enforcement of the breach.

Tim Erlin, VP of product management and strategy at Tripwire says that "unauthorized access" is a phrase that could cover a multitude of scenarios. 

"While we might learn more about the details of this breach, they’re likely to come out well after the news cycle has moved on to the next incident," Erlin said. "This incident is a good reminder that your personal data may be exposed through sites and services you don’t think of as sensitive."