SINGAPORE: Hackers have stolen more than 60 million account details from cloud storage site Dropbox. The attack took place in 2012, and includes user passwords and email addresses.

SINGAPORE: Hackers have stolen more than 60 million account details from cloud storage site Dropbox. The attack took place in 2012, and includes user passwords and email addresses.

Tech website Motherboard reported on Wednesday (Aug 31) that it had obtained email addresses and hashed passwords for more than 68 million Dropbox accounts through "sources in the database trading community". It said that the data was legitimate, citing a senior Dropbox employee.

The hack was confirmed later by security expert Troy Hunt, who wrote in an article on his website that "There is no doubt whatsoever that the data breach contains legitimate Dropbox passwords, you simply can't fabricate this sort of thing."

Dropbox sent out alerts last week to users who had not changed their passwords since 2012. In a statement last week it told users who signed up prior to mid-2012 to change their passwords, saying that it was "purely as a preventive measure". Writing in a blogpost on their website, it said that "there is no indication that your account has been improperly accessed".

In 2012, Dropbox had confirmed that credentials had been stolen, saying usernames and passwords recently stolen from other websites were used to sign in to a "small number" of Dropbox accounts.