Over half a year later, online photo sharing platform, 500px, has reported that their servers were hacked in July 2018. At first glance, the extreme delay in communications is a highly questionable move but the company has reported that it just gained knowledge of the attack earlier this month. Fears of credential stuffing, identity fraud and further targeted attacks for those affected by the breach have set in as months have gone by without any monitoring of their credentials or accounts.
With close to 15 million users that could be affected, there is an enormous amount of data that could be appear for sale on the Dark Web or in further attacks, as previously stated. Preventative measures such as changing passwords and monitoring personal and financial information should be a priority for all users that were potentially affected.
In response to the attack, 500px has now implemented a one-way cryptographic algorithm to hash user passwords, making them near impossible to crack. Encrypted passwords should be a trend for more businesses in order to safeguard data. Leaving data and servers unencrypted creates a high risk situation for companies that do experience an attack or even when companies inadvertently leave data in the open to be exposed.