Stack Overflow has just announced that it has been the victim of a hacking attack that has given the threat actors access to the production systems of this platform, report experts from the IICS cybersecurity course. For now, only one security message has been posted on the website about “certain access to production” that occurred a few days ago.
Although it is still unclear how hackers were
able to access Stack Overflow networks, developers have decided to launch
updates for all possible vulnerabilities that attackers might have exploited.
According to the experts, the incident was
detected by the Stack Overflow developers; after an internal investigation, the
platform concluded that users’ data has not been compromised: “further information will be disclosed
at the conclusion of our investigation; the most important thing for us is the
security of our customers’ information”, mentions a platform statement.
“Although our databases have not been
affected, we identified some privileged web requests made by attack operators
thanks to those who could have obtained IP addresses, email
addresses or names of a limited number of users. We will keep performing
security monitoring on our systems until danger stops”, mentions the
security alert.
Experts from the cybersecurity course claim
that the incident occurred on May 5 due to a platform error that allowed
attackers to log into development level, as well as increase access in the
production version of stackoverflow.com.
Stack Overflow began its online activities in
2008, operating as a question and answer website on programming-related topics;
for 2019, the platform already had more than 10 million users, according to
experts from the cybersecurity course.
According to experts from the International
Institute of Cyber Security (IICS), Stack Overflow is a trusted source in
issues related to the software developer community, as more than 50 million of
queries are made monthly.
