Update: leaked login credentials claimed to be associated with Dropbox accounts are not Dropbox accounts, according to Dropbox.
Rose Troup Buchanan reports:
Hundreds of passwords to Dropbox accounts have been leaked in the latest security breach, with hackers threatening to release millions more account details in exchange for Bitcoin.
Hackers, who were apparently able to access logins and passwords through a third-party service, leaked 400 account passwords and usernames on to site Pastebin late yesterday evening, according to The Next Web.
The post threatened that 6.9 million further Dropbox account details had been obtained, including photos, videos and other files, which they were prepared to leak for Bitcoins.
Read more on The Independent.
There are some similarities here to the Snapchat/Snappening, as in both cases, it is not the databases of the entity that got hacked, but a third-party service. But in both cases, users will be asking whether the firms could do more to protect user data. Public sentiment on Twitter seems to be that Snapchat needed to be clearer with users about risks and should have done more. What will they say about Dropbox? Steve Kovach has more on this on Business Insider.
Update: See also Dropbox’s blog. They updated it overnight to write:
A subsequent list of usernames and passwords has been posted online. We’ve checked and these are not associated with Dropbox accounts.
The “sixth” teaser found here http://pastebin.com/jHEjBLrQ is just part of a email combo list from 2013 which can be found here http://d-h.st/8fA
Thanks. The claims are all beginning to fall apart, it seems. But in the meantime, Dropbox got a lot of bad PR.