Antivirus firm Avast said it took its community forum offline following a hacking attack compromised its database.
User names, email addresses,nick names and passwords were
compromised in this attack. The breach
did not involve any financial data, license or any other data
While the passwords are hashed(one way encryption), it will
not take much time for a hacker to crack the hashes. The longer the password, the
harder it is to crack.
According to Avast blog post, the security breach affects
less than 0.2% (about 400,000) of Avast's 200 million users.
People who uses the same password on other websites are
advised to change those passwords immediately.
Until now, their forum used an open source community
software called "Simple Machines Forum(SMF)". It appears the Avast is using an outdated
version of SMF.
Avast said it is now "We are now rebuilding the forum
and moving it to a different software platform" which will be secure one.
Source: http://www.ehackingnews.com/
