Web-based note-taking application Evernote has reset the passwords of its 50 million users over the weekend, after a security breach.
In a message to its users, Evernote said: "Evernote's Operations & Security team has discovered and blocked suspicious activity on the Evernote network that appears to have been a coordinated attempt to access secure areas of the Evernote Service."
The company said user names, e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords were stolen, but emphasised that it found no evidence of any payment information or content stored by users in the service being accessed.
"While our password encryption measures are robust, we are taking additional steps to ensure that your personal data remains secure," said Evernote. It added that while it believes it has blocked any unauthorised access, "in an abundance of caution" it is requiring all users to reset their account passwords.
Senior technology consultant at Sophos, Graham Cluley, says hackers having access to usernames and e-mail addresses of Evernote customers poses a major risk.
"It is easy to imagine how this information could be abused - for instance, the hackers could send out spam e-mails to those users claiming to come from Evernote, and trick them into visiting a malicious Web site."
Cluley adds: "It's another cautionary tale about the risks which can exist with trusting the cloud to look after your personal information. Evernote sounds to me like it's another online service that would benefit from providing its users with additional account security - such as two-factor authentication."
Similar pattern
In a statement, Evernote said: "Our operations and security team caught this at what we believe to be the beginning stages of a sophisticated attack. They are continuing to investigate the details. We believe this activity follows a similar pattern of the many high profile attacks on other Internet-based companies that have taken place over the last several weeks."
While Evernote has not revealed any details about how the attack occurred, it joins a growing list of high-profile companies that have suffered security breaches recently. Over the last few weeks, Twitter, Facebook and even Apple reported that their security had been compromised (all believed to be a result of the same Java vulnerability and the same group of Eastern European cyber criminals). The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times were also hacked, and it is suspected that the Chinese military was involved.
"Evernote's ops and security team ensures we are using the latest and strongest security protocols. In addition, the team continuously and aggressively monitors for unusual activity patterns. This allows us, as was the case in this instance, to catch new and novel attack types as soon after they begin as possible," says Evernote.
"As recent events with other large services have demonstrated, this type of activity is becoming more common. We take our responsibility to keep your data safe very seriously, and we're constantly enhancing the security of our service infrastructure to protect Evernote and your content."
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