Opera Browser Accounts Hacked

Are you an Opera user and had issues logging into Opera Sync account? Well, now we know why. The company has revealed that its servers were breached by hackers and that sync accounts had been compromised. As a precaution, passwords for the service have been reset.

The Opera blog post reads:

“Earlier this week, we detected signs of an attack where access was gained to the Opera sync system. This attack was quickly blocked. Our investigations are ongoing, but we believe some data, including some of our sync users’ passwords and account information, such as login names, may have been compromised.

Although we only store encrypted (for synchronized passwords) or hashed and salted (for authentication) passwords in this system, we have reset all the Opera sync account passwords as a precaution.

We have also sent emails to all Opera sync users to inform them about the incident and ask them to change the password for their Opera sync accounts. In an abundance of caution, we have encouraged users to also reset any passwords to third party sites they may have synchronized with the service.

To obtain a new password for Opera sync, use the password resetting page.

The total active number of users of Opera sync in the last month is 1.7 million, less than 0.5% of the total Opera user base of 350 million people.

The remaining Opera browser users who do not use Opera sync, do not need to take any actions.

We take your data security very seriously, and want to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this might have caused.”

The Norwegian company recently announced that it was selling its mobile and desktop browser operations to a Chinese consortium and that, following the sale, it would be downsizing and changing its name following struggles to compete with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.