back to article Three million Adobe accounts hacked? Sorry, make that 38 MILLION

Remember that Adobe security breach earlier this month that leaked the account records of some 3 million customers? Scratch that: the actual number hacked was at least 38 million, it has emerged. In early October, Adobe warned of "sophisticated attacks" on its network in which hackers gained access to data for what was then …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's in a zero anyways?

    I can't help to think that some at Adobe thought..."Hey, let's just divide the number by 10 so it still seems large, but we can't ever disclose the real number". Basically, I'm betting they intentionally lied. And the fact that source code was lifted is a huge pie in the face. Does Adobe keep the source code right next to the coffee pot?

    This cloud thing isn't working out so well for them, maybe they should loose the cloud and stick to what was working to being with.

    1. hplasm
      Happy

      Re: What's in a zero anyways?

      Before you 'loose the cloud', at least be polite and open the window.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      source code was lifted is a huge pie in the face

      Alternativly:

      Now the source code is out there, maybe someone can make a decent version of Flash???

    3. bazza Silver badge

      Re: What's in a zero anyways?

      The first rule of cloud club is, don't get hacked.

      The second rule of cloud club is, really don't get hacked.

      .

      .

      .

      The last rule of cloud club is, if you do get hacked don't ever tell anyone. Except when it's that bad...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can't say I'm tempted by Adobe's new cloudy subscription service. Wasn't before, on general principles; but now it's looking even more unattractive; which is an impressive feat.

    And the source for their crown jewel, photoshop just there for the taking. Really?

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge

      Re: moiety

      Agreed, it's just you can't say Adobe and secure software in the same sentence with a straight face. With such an awful rep for holes and bugs, why would anyone trust them to run a cloud service?

      1. Don Jefe

        Re: moiety

        Their 'Creative Cloud' is cloud based insofar as the software installed on your machine talks to a validation server to make sure your license is legit. It isn't cloud based any more than Windows Genuine Advantage is cloud based.

        When you can edit photos via a browser connected to the Internet and pulling the original file from your mobile device then it'll be cloud based and we'll all have super fast broadband. Until then it's 100% marketing smack.

  3. Steve Brooks

    Wouldn't be such a big issue if all adobe product users were now required to give their credit card number to use the software, those old fashioned fuddy duddy luddites still using the boxed version must be laughing all the way t'coalface!

    1. Wibble
      Mushroom

      ... luddite phone home

      And stop the damn software phoning home every time it's used.

      Adobe's reaped what they've sown. There isn't a number small enough that would represent how much sympathy I have for them. Oh yes, it's not a number... zero.

      1. Beau
        Holmes

        Re: ... luddite phone home

        "And stop the damn software phoning home every time it's used."

        Easy, just install the old and simple program, "Privatefirewall" then choose which programs are allowed to access the internet or not. It works reliably, and as I said, "it's simple".

  4. may03hd
    FAIL

    It's a shame their chat operators wasn't owning up to this Tuesday morning when I contacted them to ask why the unique email address I'd signed up with was being spamed "Chris, I have checked at my end and your account is not impacted from the security breach". When pushed again I got the answer "that is correct", "I have checked that at my end your account is fine not been hacked." and shortly after they closed the chat.

    1. Confuciousmobil

      You think their Bots can actually tell?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Leakage -

      Did you get a Hangouts+ 6 or 7 second voicemail Spam as well?

      I'm miffed, Adobe did the same to me - i'm trying to track the file on AnonNews now to take a look just what was lost.

  5. xyz Silver badge
    FAIL

    I've heard jack sh*t out of this bunch since they told me I was affected.

    Their spin department seems to be more effective at blagging journos than their "do stuff" department is at helping their customers.

  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    I have never bought an Adobe product.

    And I don't think I ever will.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Pirate

      You won't need to - a free version called MyPhotoShop will soon be available(*).

      And it'll curiously have all the bells and whistles, without any of the DRM/controlling stuff.

      In other words, it'll be a hit !

      (*) only on Pirate Bay

      1. Don Jefe

        It'll probably have the bugs worked out too.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        LOL - you're an idiot if u still use Pirate Bay - I got such a persistent virus from that site I had to entirely reinstall EVERYTHING - it blasted through both AV and malware software like it wasn't even there.....Luckily I keep everything disk imaged.....gonna move everything important to an offline computer & use a cheap netbook for all online stuff...just like the NSA does ;*p

        1. Don Jefe

          Out of curiosity, did you also get your AV and malware package from TPB?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    not surprised they confused 3 for 38

    When their software titles have had a very confused and illogical numbering pattern.

    I thought photoshop was good at version 5.5 ... but then i magically got back to version 2 (creative suite) before climbing to 6? Now with online CC its back at 1... these lot can't count!

  8. ZeroP

    I wonder if that's why my credit card was flagged by the bank. I got the email (which said cards weren't accessed) when it was known, but my card was only flagged last week or so. Frustrating if so.

  9. Roo

    In this case Free == Worthless

    "The company has offered one year's worth of free credit monitoring by Experian to any customer whose account was compromised in the attack"

    Adobe really are jokers, Experian are known sell their info to identity thieves, putting your customers in their care is grossly negligent.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: In this case Free == Worthless

      Yep. BOHICA

    2. Don Jefe
      Unhappy

      Re: In this case Free == Worthless

      If you've got an SSN and have opened a bank account and/or attended college in the US since 2001, you're already an Experian customer. How neat is that.

      1. FrankAlphaXII

        Re: In this case Free == Worthless

        And if you did anything with your credit before that you were a TRW customer, at least until 1996. I don't recall if the company changed their name in '96 or not. Experian's the worst of the consumer credit bureaus anyway, they consistently miss things (and fairly major things, like death) that Equifax and TransUnion see.

  10. Martin H Watson

    Dare I say...

    ...that I hope the villains get Shopped?

    1. John G Imrie

      Re: Dare I say...

      define villains.

  11. TaabuTheCat

    Total failure from beginning to end

    Not only did they get pwned, I got one of the lovely letters from them saying they were so sorry my info had been taken and here's an authorization code to sign up for free credit monitoring. So I go to the Experian site to sign up and guess what, the code doesn't work. Thanks for your concern.

    FYI Adobe... I just finished uninstalling the last copy of Acrobat on our workstations at the office. It won't be missed.

  12. Spoonsinger

    Ummmm...

    because this was a news story on Radio 4 today, I've had two people ring up and say 'have my details been hacked", even though they just use Adobe Reader and have never signed into their services. Now if you want to extrapolate from that to Adobe's user base in general, it's probably not very good press.

    1. t.est

      Re: Ummmm...

      But what about us who may have some old info there, how can we check for if our info is in it?

      Can't find that file on anonnews.org...

  13. btrower

    Have not trusted Adobe in ages

    Adobe has absolutely put the needs of its cronies over the needs of customers and this is the *inevitable* result. Is it bad? You bet it is. Will they be punished? Not likely.

  14. John McCallum

    Adobe purchase's

    the only "software" that I have bought from adobe were two Ebooks when they had a tieup with Overdrive now I can no longer read them as the turned of the servers.

  15. MachDiamond Silver badge

    Please explain

    Why is CC better than purchasing boxed software, then? For the customer. I know it's fabulous for Adobe.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Re: Please explain

      ...it isn't...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    GNU's GNASH

    The source code might come in handy for projects such as GNU's Gnash. an open source version of flash being developed for a few years now.

    1. FrankAlphaXII

      Re: GNU's GNASH

      Gnash still doesn't work worth a good goddamn, which is a shame. And its been a year and a half since the last release, which is also a shame. Anything that doesn't crash as much as Flash is definitely welcome, but Gnash simply doesn't work well enough for my use case.

      If you want a FOSS flash plugin replacement that actually works (with audio too, imagine that) most of the time, try Mozilla's Shumway, it only works in Firefox and SeaMonkey though but since you're talking about a GNU product, you're probably not using Chrome or IE. It should work in the unbranded versions like Iceweasel also. I haven't run into anything it can't play since I've been using it, so much so that I uninstalled flash and haven't noticed.

      Give it a try here I think you'll be impressed somewhat.

  17. Stevie

    Bah!

    So what, were they using Pig Latin to encrypt everything? I thought encryption was the way to a secure server where the assets nicked would be so much worthless gibberish. I read so here.

  18. ecofeco Silver badge
    Mushroom

    38 million

    That is NOT an insignificant number.

    More cloud, anyone?

  19. Brainphrozen

    This makes me question the very nature of having software happily sitting on a cloud and making customers log in to use it. Thanks I'll keep to having my software on my desktop for now.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like