Anti-virus firm Avast gets hacked

[Starbuck]

A forum belonging to anti-virus firm Avast has been hacked, it has been reported.

 

The cyber attack compromised roughly 400 000 users, according to TechWorm.

 

In a blog post on Avast's website, CEO Vincent Steckler confirmed that details, such as usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords were compromised.

 

"Even though the passwords were hashed [encrypted - ed], it could be possible for a sophisticated thief to derive many of the passwords," Steckler said.

 

Avast said that no payment information or other data was compromised however.

 

"This forum for many years has been hosted on a third-party software platform and how the attacker breached the forum is not yet known," Steckler said, adding that they essentially detected the attack almost immediately.

 

As is usually the case with these attacks, Avast has called on users to change their passwords.

 

 

Source:

http://technology.iafrica.com/news/technology/941405.html

[Starbuck]

Avast takes community forum offline after data breach

 

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/052714-avast-takes-community-forum-offline-281902.html?source=nww_rss

[RustyKnight]

Glad I ditched Avast when I did.