Quora says hackers took data on 100 million users

Popular question-and-answer site Quora has discovered that hackers broke into its system and took data on 100 million users.

The company announced in a blog post Monday that it discovered user data was compromised by a third party who gained unauthorized access to one of its systems. The company says the data taken included names, email addresses and encrypted passwords, along with data imported from linked social media networks.

Data related to the site, including upvotes, downvotes, questions, answers, comments and direct messages could also have been accessed.

“The overwhelming majority of the content accessed was already public on Quora, but the compromise of account and other private information is serious,” the blog post reads.

The company isn’t sure on the precise cause of the hack, but has retained a third-party digital forensics firm to assist with the investigation. Law enforcement has also been contacted.

Quora is still figuring out who exactly was compromised, but the blog post states users should be getting notices via email. In the blog post, the company states that while its passwords are hashed with a salt that varies for each user, it’s wise for users to change their passwords elsewhere if they reused their Quora password elsewhere.

“It is our responsibility to make sure things like this don’t happen, and we failed to meet that responsibility,” the blog post states. “We are continuing to work very hard to remedy the situation, and we hope over time to prove that we are worthy of your trust.”

The announcement comes after a rash of data breaches, including a mammoth incident announced by Marriott hotels on Friday.