Quora, the renowned open platform & question-and-answer website, reported that a data breach may have compromised data of around 100 million Quora users. The real culprit behind this Quora data breach is a malevolent third party that gained unauthorized access to one of Quora’s systems on 30^th November 2018.

Quora in Action

Adam D’Angelo, co-founder & CEO of Quora, reacted to the incident & said that Quora is investigating to find the precise causes of this catastrophe and retained an elite digital forensic firm to assist them. In addition to that Adam informed that the company is logging out & unplugging Quora users who may have been impacted by this security breach to prevent any further damage to Computer Security.

The company is notifying users with relevant & important details via e-mail & urging them to change the passwords. A FAQ list about Quora data breach has been set up by the company which can be referred to by Quora users.

What all Information was compromised in this Quora data breach?

As per the detailed report by Quora, the following information of Quora users may have been accessed by hackers:

1. Account information like User Name, User ID, IP Address, E-mail Address, Encrypted Passwords, User Account Settings & Preferences.
2. Other information like public content, actions & saved drafts like questions, answers, blog posts, comments & up-votes.
3. Data imported from linked networks when authorized by the Quora user like contacts, analytical information, interests & preferences.
4. Non-public content impacted by this Quora data breach includes messages, suggestions for edits in answers, thanks quotes, down-votes & answer requests.
5. The credentials from other social networks like Facebook & Twitter may have been impacted if Quora users had linked them to their Quora accounts.

Surprisingly, comments posted by the anonymous users on Quora’s platform have not been impacted by data protection breach.

Quora Data Breach: Recent in the String of High-Profile Data Breaches

The Quora data breach, however, is the most recent in the course of high-profile data security breach in recent years.

The news of Quora being hacked came to light just few days after the database of Marriott International was hacked that exposed personal data of around 500 million customers from Hotel’s Starwood Reservation System. The breached data also included some card numbers that were used by the customers to make payments.

Quora stated that root cause of data breach has been identified & thorough investigation of this ruinous incidence is still going on. The company claims to have made security improvements & taken steps to address the issue and avoid data breach from happening in future.

Quora users can reset the passwords of their accounts in order to stay safe & avoid any further data theft. Those who want to delete their accounts can visit Account Privacy Settings & choose “Delete Account”. Entering the password will confirm the deletion of Quora account.

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