| Hackers broke into thousands of Dropbox Inc. accounts last month, viewing and downloading material users kept on the cloud-storage platform, according to a company statement and records seen by Bloomberg News. About 5,000 Dropbox accounts were compromised by the hackers, who accessed files on less than a third of them, spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt said in an email. When Dropbox learned of the issue, it moved to secure the accounts, he said, adding that the company has since notified regulators and affected users. Shares of Dropbox fell as much as 6.6% in postmarket trading on Tuesday. Some Dropbox users received an email from the company on Monday saying there was unauthorized access to their accounts between Aug. 4 and Aug. 21, according to notification emails seen by Bloomberg. The company told some users their files were viewed and downloaded during that time, while others were told there was no evidence of this, the emails show. ALSO READ: Who Is Linwei Ding? Ex-Google Engineer Sentenced To One Year Jail Term For Stealing AI Secret The compromised accounts weren't protected by multifactor authentication, Rathschmidt said. The hackers accessed the accounts by using a Lenovo ID, a user name and password that allows users to access products and services made by Lenovo Group Ltd., according to the emails. Dropbox users can access their accounts using verified Lenovo IDs, according to one of the emails. Because of an "issue" with Lenovo's email verification process, the hackers were able to register Lenovo IDs using the emails of Dropbox users, even if they hadn't set up such an account, the notification emails say. The hackers then used the Lenovo IDs' to access the accounts. Lenovo said in an emailed statement that it recently became aware of a "legacy integration" between Lenovo ID and Dropbox that "could be used to improperly authenticate certain Dropbox accounts." The companies worked together to "mitigate the risk." Lenovo's customers weren't affected, and an investigation is ongoing, according to the statement. Dropbox doesn't expect the breaches to have a material impact on its business, Rathschmidt said. ALSO READ: New Netflix Doc Explores Trump's Covert Air Force One Switch Amid Iran Fears |
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