Data Breach

Foxit Software discloses a data breach that exposed user passwords

Foxit Software, the company behind the Foxit PDF reader app, disclosed a data breach that exposed customers’ information, including passwords.

Foxit Software, the PDF software provider behind the Foxit PDF reader app disclosed a security breach that took place recently exposing customers’ information. The incident exposed personal identification data of ‘My Account’ service users, third parties accessed to client’s information such as email addresses, passwords, real names, phone numbers, company names, and IP addresses from which users logged into their accounts.

According to the Foxit, the company has over 525 million users worldwide.

“Foxit has determined that unauthorized access to its data systems took place recently. Third parties have gained access to Foxit’s ‘My Account’ user account data, which contains email addresses, passwords, users’ names, phone numbers, company names and IP addresses,” reads a security advisory published by the company.

The free membership ‘My Account’ service provides customers with access to “software trial downloads, order histories, product registration information, and troubleshooting and support information,” this means that no financial data was exposed in the incident.

Foxit pointed out that it does not maintain customer payment card information in its systems.

Foxit already notified the impacted ‘My Account’ users of the security breach via emails and forced them to reset passwords.

The company reported the incident to law enforcement and is investigating the incident with the help of a security management firm.

“Foxit’s security team has immediately launched a digital forensics investigation. The company has invalidated the account passwords for all potentially impacted accounts, requiring users to reset their passwords to regain access to the My Account service. Foxit has notified law enforcement agencies and data protection authorities and is destined to cooperate with the agencies’ investigations.” continues the advisory. “In addition, the company has hired a security management firm to conduct an in-depth analysis, strengthen the company’s security posture and protect against future cyber security incidents.”

The data breach notification emails don’t clarify the way Foxit had protected customer passwords, it could be interesting to know if the company has used hashing and salting functions.

The company recommends customers to remain vigilant to avoid identity theft and phishing attacks.

“Foxit also recommends customers to remain vigilant by reviewing account statements and monitoring credit reports to avoid identity theft. Customers should furthermore be aware that fraudsters may use their data to gather further information by deception (“phishing”).” concludes the advisory. “Security and the privacy of customer data is very important to Foxit, and the company will take all reasonable steps to ensure customer information stay secure in the future.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – data breach, hacking)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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