Opera reveals its sync service is hacked, resets passwords as precautionary measure

Earlier last week, Opera reported that hackers had gained access to the Opera sync service which is used to sync browsing data between devices. According to a post on its official blog, Opera said that the attack was ‘quickly blocked.’ It added that investigation is ongoing. However, some data may have been compromised. Opera went on to say that despite using encrypted, hashed and salted passwords in its systems, it still went ahead and reset all Opera sync passwords as a precautionary measure. In an email sent out to Opera sync users, it informed them about the breach and advised them to change their passwords. As a precautionary measure, Opera also advised users of the Opera sync service to reset passwords for any third party applications that are connected to their Opera sync account. To reset their password, Opera sync users can head to the page here. They need to enter their email address and follow the instruction to receive the updated password. According to the blog post, there are 1.7 million total active Opera sync users last month, which is less than 0.5% of the total Opera user base, which currently stands at 350 million. The advisory issued for password reset is only directed at Opera sync users. Users of Opera browser who do not use the service need not take any corrective action.