More than 100 million users of Quora, the question-and-answer website, were recently affected by a security breach after a 'malicious third party' gained unauthorised access to one of its systems.
According to a report by Reuters, private information including names, email addresses, encrypted passwords and data imported from linked networks may have been acquired by hackers. Quora's public comments, question, answers and upvotes have been illegally accessed. However, anonymous comments and accounts were not affected as Quora provides complete security to anonymous content.
In a blog post, Quora said it was discovered that a third party had gained illegal access to one of its systems. To tackle the problem, Quora has hired digital forensics and security firms to conduct an investigation and also logged out all users whose accounts may have been hacked to prevent further damage.
The affected Quora users are being informed about the security breach via email. The website was founded in 2009 by Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever, two ex-Facebook employees.