June 25, 2011 by Vincent

Dropbox Security Blunder Leaves All User Accounts Accessible Without Password

Dropbox - Your stuff is safe

All Dropbox accounts were accessible with virtually any passwords, even incorrect ones, for four hours on Monday. The blunder was made when the company implemented a code update, and it took four hours before realizing the issue, eventually having it fixed in the next five minutes.

Less than one percent of users logged in during that period, according to a blog post by Arash Ferdowsi, Dropbox’s co-founder and CTO. These accounts will be flagged for investigation, and the account owner will be notified if there’s any unauthorized access:

We’re conducting a thorough investigation of related activity to understand whether any accounts were improperly accessed. If we identify any specific instances of unusual activity, we’ll immediately notify the account owner. If you’re concerned about any activity that has occurred in your account, you can contact us at [email protected].

2011 hasn’t been a particularly good year for Dropbox. Some users got upset when the company updated its terms of service in April, reserving the right to decrypt and hand over private files of any users to the government when requested, in compliance to the United States law.

The company was also alleged to have misled its users in a help article, stating “Dropbox employees aren’t able to access user files” statement.” The statement was later revised to “Dropbox employees are prohibited from viewing the content of files you store..” in the same month.

Along with the latest security blunder, Dropbox effectively went from “only you can see your files” to “employees and the government may also see your files”, and for four hours, “anyone can see your files.”

The commendable part? Dropbox admits its fault on each of these occasions, clarifying and communicating with its users through the company blog.

Protip: Regardless of any promises made by online storage service providers, if a file is too important to be seen by anyone, encrypt it yourself using free tools like TrueCrypt.

 

#dropbox#Online storage#security

Comments

  1. Delena Silverfox - June 27, 2011 @ 7:05 am

    Wow. And here I just began using Dropbox. O.O’ I may have to seriously rethink this now.

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  2. Steven Papas - June 28, 2011 @ 4:31 am

    I’ve used Dropbox several times and has worked so well. I think after this error they will be more careful in the future.

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  3. Alfee - July 12, 2011 @ 4:06 am

    I’ve dropped DropBox completely now. Just one too many security issues lately. Have to make do with a combination of SugarSync, Windows Live Mesh and the good old thumbdrive.

  4. Oscar - July 15, 2011 @ 10:55 pm

    Thanks for the post and the comments. Good to know.

  5. Kavya Hari - July 20, 2011 @ 2:23 pm

    This is one of teh excellent places to know about dropbox security info on here. valuable post on here too 🙂

  6. Aamir - July 28, 2011 @ 5:56 pm

    thank god i didnt start using dropbox!

  7. James H - August 5, 2011 @ 3:22 pm

    Thankfully some of my clients wanted me to use Dropbox, but i always found it to be useless, thank you for sharing it with us, you have confirmed my conviction

  8. kewin - August 11, 2011 @ 7:36 pm

    thank god.i didnt put anything important in dropbox.only picture of batman…haha

  9. Deborah Martinez - August 12, 2011 @ 2:53 am

    Wow, just learned that. Such a waste, they were showing some promise. I hope they can fix the glitches, and continue serving their clients. They’ll have some problems gaining the confidence of their market though.

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    i got security issues too.but still it’s good.

  12. Sugel - October 27, 2011 @ 4:39 am

    These terms of service the Terms govern your access to and use of Dropbox we or our websites and services the Services so please carefully read them before using the Services.. You may use the Services only if you have the power to form a contract with Dropbox and are not barred under any applicable laws from doing so. By using our Services you provide us with information files and folders that you submit to Dropbox together your stuff .

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  13. UmairP - November 12, 2011 @ 2:35 pm

    This is very bad, for both: users and dropbox it self.

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    Dropbox has been criticized by independent security researcher Derek Newton, who has argued that Dropbox’s authentication architecture is inherently insecure and by software expert Miguel de Icaza who claims that Dropbox’s terms of service contradicts its privacy policy and that the company’s famous claim dropbox employees aren’t able to access user files is a lie. Thanks.

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