News and Updates on Information Technology

United States – Freepik

Exploit: Unauthorized Database Access (Hacking)
Freepik: Photo and Graphic Library

Risk to Small Business: 1.903 = Severe

Photo and graphics giant Freepik the security breach occurred after hackers were able to exploit an SQL vulnerability to gain access to one of its databases storing user data. The unidentified cybercriminals gained access to usernames and passwords for the oldest accounts registered on the Freepik and Flaticon websites, impacting millions of users.

Individual Risk: 2.782 = Moderate

Potentially affected users have been notified via email the company reports that impact varies per account. Not all users had passwords associated with their accounts. The company estimates that number at 4.5 million users who used federated logins (Google, Facebook, or Twitter) to log into their accounts. For the remaining 3.77M users the attacker got their email address and a hash of their password. For 3.55M of those users, the method to hash the password was bcrypt. For 229K users, the method was salted MD5. Since the attack, all users have been updated to bcrypt.

Customers Impacted: 8.3 million

How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: It pays to guard old data too by updating storage security and access security. Many of the oldest databases and accounts involved in this incident had never had their security updated and it had long since become obsolete, making it easier for hackers to break in and steal.

Source:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/free-photos-graphics-site-freepik-discloses-data-breach-impacting-8-3m-users/?&web_view=true