Dropbox Hacked 2014 Update: Cloud Storage Service Denies Hack, Data Leak But Cites 'Internal Maintenance' Issue
Dropbox denied claims its cloud storage service was compromised by a hacker group.
The cloud storage service encountered an outage, according to some users, by 9 p.m. EST on Jan. 10. A hacker group that identified themselves as The 1775 Sec tweeted it hacked into Dropbox's database.
Dropbox users alternatively visited the cloud service's official website but were directed to its status webpage.
Dropbox refuted claims its service was hacked. Furthermore, Dropbox stated the assertion of leaked data was a hoax.
"Dropbox site is back up! Claims of leaked user info are a hoax," tweeted Dropbox. "The outage was caused during internal maintenance. Thanks for your patience!"
The 1775 Sec would later confirm that user data was not leaked.
The hacker group stated it utilized bots to deliver a denial of service attack to honor the passing of computer programmer and Internet activist Aaron Schwartz, who died on Jan. 11, 2013.
As of Jan. 11, the cloud storage service noted it was still experiencing "lingering issues" from the night prior's outage.
"We're working hard to get everything back up, and want to give you an update," Dropbox wrote on its Tech Blog. "No files were lost in the outage, but some users continue to run into problems using various parts of dropbox.com and our mobile apps. We're rapidly reducing the number of users experiencing these problems, and are making good progress."
Dropbox also stated its team has been working on issues regarding photos and has therefore temporarily disabled photo sharing and the Photos tab on its official website.
That was some serious Lulz. We DDoS attack DropBox! After it's down we say data base compromise! And the media is all over it! #Lulz #fail
— The 1775 Sec (@1775Sec) January 11, 2014
Dropbox site is back up! Claims of leaked user info are a hoax. The outage was caused during internal maintenance. Thanks for your patience! — Dropbox (@Dropbox) January 11, 2014
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