News Avast Anti Virus Forum hacked, Login Credentials of 400,000 users compromised

tom_mai78101

The Helper Connoisseur / Ex-MineCraft Host
Staff member
Reaction score
1,667
Antivirus firm Avast has today confirmed that it took its Community support forum offline following a data breach which may have affected log in ids and passwords of more than 400,000 users.

Company's CEO Vincent Steckler today stated in a blog post that user's nicknames, user names, email addresses and hashed passwords were compromised in a attack on Avast Forum which took place over this past weekend. Steckler also noted in the same blog, that although the passwords are hashed but it could be possible for a sophisticated thief / progammer to derive these passwords.

Avast claims that this attack seems to have affected less than 0.2% of a total of 200 million users of the forum. It also claimed that no financial details like payment, license terms or other data was compromised.

The Forum (forum.avast.com) has since been taken offline and is being rebuilt and moved to a more secure platform. Avast has already informed all the affected parties via email asking them to immediately change their passwords. Users may also change their other passwords like Facebook, gmail and other emails, banking etc. if its the same as the Avast forum account

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Ghan

Administrator - Servers are fun
Staff member
Reaction score
888
"The company said the Forum was hosted on a third-party Software platform."

Yes, but which one?
 

The Helper

Necromancy Power over 9000
Staff member
Reaction score
1,697
The worst thing about the whole incident for Avast is it is being reported in the news. The third party defense will work OK with the serious users but the General Public just sees AVAST getting hacked. It could get bad for the third party forum hoster if anyone goes down that rabbit hole and it gets reported in the big News.
 
General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • Varine Varine:
    How can you tell the difference between real traffic and indexing or AI generation bots?
  • The Helper The Helper:
    The bots will show up as users online in the forum software but they do not show up in my stats tracking. I am sure there are bots in the stats but the way alot of the bots treat the site do not show up on the stats
  • Varine Varine:
    I want to build a filtration system for my 3d printer, and that shit is so much more complicated than I thought it would be
  • Varine Varine:
    Apparently ABS emits styrene particulates which can be like .2 micrometers, which idk if the VOC detectors I have can even catch that
  • Varine Varine:
    Anyway I need to get some of those sensors and two air pressure sensors installed before an after the filters, which I need to figure out how to calculate the necessary pressure for and I have yet to find anything that tells me how to actually do that, just the cfm ratings
  • Varine Varine:
    And then I have to set up an arduino board to read those sensors, which I also don't know very much about but I have a whole bunch of crash course things for that
  • Varine Varine:
    These sensors are also a lot more than I thought they would be. Like 5 to 10 each, idk why but I assumed they would be like 2 dollars
  • Varine Varine:
    Another issue I'm learning is that a lot of the air quality sensors don't work at very high ambient temperatures. I'm planning on heating this enclosure to like 60C or so, and that's the upper limit of their functionality
  • Varine Varine:
    Although I don't know if I need to actually actively heat it or just let the plate and hotend bring the ambient temp to whatever it will, but even then I need to figure out an exfiltration for hot air. I think I kind of know what to do but it's still fucking confusing
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Maybe you could find some of that information from AC tech - like how they detect freon and such
  • Varine Varine:
    That's mostly what I've been looking at
  • Varine Varine:
    I don't think I'm dealing with quite the same pressures though, at the very least its a significantly smaller system. For the time being I'm just going to put together a quick scrubby box though and hope it works good enough to not make my house toxic
  • Varine Varine:
    I mean I don't use this enough to pose any significant danger I don't think, but I would still rather not be throwing styrene all over the air
  • The Helper The Helper:
    New dessert added to recipes Southern Pecan Praline Cake https://www.thehelper.net/threads/recipe-southern-pecan-praline-cake.193555/
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Another bot invasion 493 members online most of them bots that do not show up on stats
  • Varine Varine:
    I'm looking at a solid 378 guests, but 3 members. Of which two are me and VSNES. The third is unlisted, which makes me think its a ghost.
    +1
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Some members choose invisibility mode
    +1
  • The Helper The Helper:
    I bitch about Xenforo sometimes but it really is full featured you just have to really know what you are doing to get the most out of it.
  • The Helper The Helper:
    It is just not easy to fix styles and customize but it definitely can be done
  • The Helper The Helper:
    I do know this - xenforo dropped the ball by not keeping the vbulletin reputation comments as a feature. The loss of the Reputation comments data when we switched to Xenforo really was the death knell for the site when it came to all the users that left. I know I missed it so much and I got way less interested in the site when that feature was gone and I run the site.
  • Blackveiled Blackveiled:
    People love rep, lol
    +1
  • The Helper The Helper:
    The recipe today is Sloppy Joe Casserole - one of my faves LOL https://www.thehelper.net/threads/sloppy-joe-casserole-with-manwich.193585/
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Decided to put up a healthier type recipe to mix it up - Honey Garlic Shrimp Stir-Fry https://www.thehelper.net/threads/recipe-honey-garlic-shrimp-stir-fry.193595/

      The Helper Discord

      Staff online

      Members online

      Affiliates

      Hive Workshop NUON Dome World Editor Tutorials

      Network Sponsors

      Apex Steel Pipe - Buys and sells Steel Pipe.
      Top