Evernote Users Lash Out Following ‘Disturbing’ Hack

Evernote Users Lash Out Following ‘Disturbing’ Hack

American note-taking software company Evernote has announced ‘disturbing’ news that it has been hacked.

The company has become the latest high-profile victim of a cyber attack and as a ‘precaution’, has implemented a password reset for all users.

After ‘suspicious activity’, in which the hacker(s) were able to gain access to Evernote user information, including usernames, email addresses associated with Evernote accounts and encrypted passwords, an estimated 50 million people were forced to reset their passwords.

Angry Users

Despite the notice on its website, plenty of irate users took to the company’s site to air their frustration, as many felt they should have been emailed about the compulsory password change.

One user said it was ‘inexcusable’ that no email was sent to users and another said the unexplained password reset actually prompted hacking fears.

A user nicknamed b737officeview, said: “This is really disturbing. I just signed up for Evernote and Evernote Premium just yesterday, after months of considering the best way to go paperless.

“It seems my fears were warranted as I didn’t even last 24 hours on Evernote without having my password reset and a leak of data occur.”

User Dave Yuhas added:”Evernote couldn’t have emailed this notice? I had to spend my time trying to figure out why I couldn’t access my account.”

“How about sending out the email first then reset passwords? Then perhaps I wouldn’t have thought logging in today was an attempt at phishing my password,” said user Howard Young.

Encryption

A spokesman from Evernote said even though information was accessed, the passwords stored by Evernote are protected by one-way encryption.

On Saturday a notice appeared on the company’s website, which said: “While our password encryption measures are robust, we are taking additional steps to ensure that your personal data remains secure. This means that, in an abundance of caution, we are requiring all users to reset their Evernote account passwords.”

The company said it found no evidence that any of the content in Evernote was accessed, changed or lost. There was also no evidence that any payment information for Evernote Premium or Evernote Business customers was accessed.

Evernote also said it would be releasing updates to several of its apps to make the password change process easier.

Illegal hacking activity appears to becoming more common and follows similar incidents which affected the likes of Twitter and Facebook, as reported by TechBeat last month.

Jeep and Burger King also had their Twitter accounts hacked recently and the The New York Times and Wall Street Journal also reported breaches of their systems earlier this year.

[Image via hellofax]

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