Opera admits server breach incident, tells users to reset passwords

Server breaches seem to be pretty common of late, as malicious elements continue to become more savvy and enterprising. That is why it should be a pretty common practice for us to constantly change passwords just to be on the safe side. The latest incident is with the Opera sync system, and while the company admits that there was a server breach, they said that they were able to block it immediately. Nevertheless, they’re encouraging users to reset their passwords as a logical security measure.

Early last week, they detected the attack and based on their current investigation, they believe that some of the sync users’ username and passwords were compromised. Their system actually only stores encrypted or hashed or salted passwords, but they still reset all the sync passwords “as a precaution”. They’ve also sent out emails to the users to prompt them to change their passwords, even to third-party sites that they may have synchronized with the service as well.

We don’t know if the server breach incident has anything to do with the recently introduced Opera VPN service which gives you free and unlimited and supposedly secure VPN to be able to access any blocked content in other territories, like Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, or Singapore. It also blocks ad trackers and even those “annoying ads” and scans WiFi networks you’re connecting to in order to verify if it’s encrypted or not, if it’s public or private, etc.

The timing with the release of this service and the breach may just be a coincidence and Opera doesn’t seem to have made any connection to the two, although their investigation is still underway. If you use the sync service, better head on over to the settings and change your password. If you don’t sync your data on your Opera browser, carry on.

SOURCE: Opera