News aggregator Flipboard disclosed in a recent announcement that hackers gained access to and potentially obtained copies of some of its databases containing user information between June 2, 2018 and March 23, 2019, and from April 21 to 22, 2019. Flipboard said it detected the intrusion on April 23, a day after the second hack, “after identifying suspicious activity in the environment where the databases reside". What information was compromised? Flipboard, which has more than 145 million monthly active users, said it was in the process of determining how many accounts were affected. It said the compromised databases contained users’ names, Flipboard usernames, and cryptographically protected password and email addresses. For users who had connected their Flipboard account to a third-party account, including social media accounts, the compromised databases may have contained digital tokens. However, it said it had found no evidence that the unauthorized person accessed these third-party account(s). Flipboard emphasized that the database did not contain government-issued IDs, bank account details, credit card numbers, or any other financial information. What action has Flipboard taken? Flipboard said it had reset all users’ passwords as a precaution, and was in the process of notifying all affected users. It said all users would be prompted to create a new password when they next tried to log in. As another precaution, Flipboard said it disconnected tokens used to connect to all third-party accounts and replaced or deleted all digital tokens. This, it said, would require users who accessed Flipboard through their social…
