17 Million Disk Accounts Uncovered by a Hack

Disqus is the company that provides the comment plugin on many web pages and blogs. The company has revealed that they just realized they suffered a hack in 2012 in which the details of 17.5 million users were stolen. The stolen data includes email, username and registration date.

17 million Disqus accounts uncovered by a hack

In addition, the attackers obtained the passwords of a third of the affected users. To achieve this they used the SHA-1 algorithm. It has been Disqus herself who has revealed these facts after learning about them this week. After having hired an investigation to Troy Hunt, which is when this hack that happened five years ago was known. Disqus has already contacted affected users.

Hacking Disqus

Plain text passwords could not be exposed, but this data can be decrypted. So Disqus is resetting the passwords of all affected users as a security measure. But all users of this service are recommended to change their password as a precaution. Also that they change the passwords of other platforms if they use the same on those platforms.

Not much more is known about this hacking suffered by Disqus. The company has been introducing various security enhancements since 2012, such as a new password encryption algorithm. In addition to updating the database and encryption. So protection has been significantly increased to prevent new hacks.

Therefore, Disqus is resetting the passwords of the affected users. Although in general it would not hurt if all users decide to change their passwords. It is also advisable to change the password of other online services as a precaution.