Opera’s sync system was hacked earlier this week and as a safety precaution, the company has reset all Opera sync account passwords. Opera says that while the attack was quickly blocked, and passwords are encrypted or hashed and salted, they want to ensure that user data are all safe, which is why they have reset all user passwords.
If you are using Opera sync, you should have received an email from Opera regarding the incident, along with a link to change your password. Just in case you missed out that email, you can use the password-resetting page on Opera to obtain a new password. Opera also encourage sync users to reset any passwords to third party sites that they may have synchronised with the service.
Opera did not provide any further information about the attack. All they said was that they “detected signs of an attack where access was gained to the Opera sync system”. They are investigating the attack and they believe that some sync users’ passwords and account information such as login names may have been compromised.
Opera currently has a user base of 350 million people, but only 1.7 million of them are users of Opera sync; that is less than 0.5% of the total Opera user base. For those who are not using Opera sync, you do not need to take any actions but it doesn’t hurt to change your passwords every now and then, so maybe it’s time to do so.
