Dropbox denies claims it was hacked and user information leaked after it shut down for several hours
Dropbox is recovering from an outage which left users unable to access the site for several hours, but maintains that it was due to technical issue and not a hack. The file sharing service said it on its site that it was down due to an issue that came up during "regular maintenance", which it then updated to reiterate that "external factors" had not played a part. However, the hacker group The 1775 Sec claimed responsibility, saying via Twitter that it had taken the site down to mark the one-year anniversary of Aaron Swartz’s suicide. The group then threatened a database leak if Dropbox didn’t fix its “website vulnerabilities" and later posted a link to a partial leak, apparently giving the names and email addresses of Dropbox users. As Dropbox remained silent, and media reported it as a maintenance issue, The 1775 posted several messages claiming the the hack was simply a Denial of Service and that the leaked information came from an old database, revealing it was done to "troll" the media.
BREAKING NEWS: We have just compromised the @Dropbox Website http://t.co/HqnsZOLSXR#hacked#compromised
— The 1775 Sec (@1775Sec) January 11, 2014@Dropbox We are giving you time to fix your websites vulnerability. If it's not fixed expect a Database leak!
— The 1775 Sec (@1775Sec) January 11, 2014
@Dropbox claims it was a routine internal maintenance! Lol. Is bluffing really going to help them? We are closer to leaking data...
— The 1775 Sec (@1775Sec) January 11, 2014
That was some serious Lulz. We DDoS attack DropBox! After it's down we say data base compromise! And the media is all over it! #Lulz #fail
— The 1775 Sec (@1775Sec) January 11, 2014
Did anyone bother to do some research. lol. We made the Internet Reporters look like fools! That is what we did in your honor Aaron Swartz
— The 1775 Sec (@1775Sec) January 11, 2014
Dropbox site is back up! Claims of leaked user info are a hoax. The outage was caused during internal maintenance. Thanks for your patience!
— Dropbox (@Dropbox) January 11, 2014