Video-sharing website Dailymotion, considered one of the biggest video delivery platforms in the world, recently admitted that 85.2 million of its user accounts were compromised in a hacking attack.
Dailymotion said that hacker was able to get hold of user email address and usernames from the company's servers. The company added that about one in five accounts, or roughly 18.3 million, had associated passwords, according to ZDNet. Dailymotion said that the company uses bcrypt hashing function to encrypt user information, but the hackers were able to crack it.
There are reports that the hack was carried out on Oct. 20 by a lone hacker. The identity of the perpetrator is still unknown.
Many tech experts believe that the hacked Dailymotion data have been circulated for some time. Although the use of bcrypt to hash passwords is an excellent choice, experts said that it is still possible to crack them, as proven by what happened after millions of Ashley Madison accounts were compromised.
In a statement posted on the company blog post, Dailymotion wrote, "The hack appears to be limited, and no personal data has been comprised. Your account security is extremely important to us, and to be on the safe side, we are strongly advising all of our partners and users to reset their passwords."
Dailymotion advised its users to use passwords that contain more than eight characters, and that they use passwords that are not obvious. It is also safer to use different passwords on each online accounts to prevent a domino effect if one of the accounts are compromised. Dailymotion account holders can reset their passwords by accessing the option under Account Settings.
In November, 412 million accounts were compromised after hackers were able to penetrate the database of FriendFinder Networks. The hackers were able to access six databases including those used by Cams.com, Penthouse.com, iCams.com, and AdultFriendFinder.com.