Pixlr is a digital photography editing application, offering a similar service to Photoshop. It is a popular online app. An indication that data has been lost appeared on a hacking forum, as Bleeping Computer has reported. The hacking of photographs is a new, but growing area. The Pixlr hack follows on from a recent targeting of stock photo site 123RF. With the latter incident, some 8.3 million items appeared for sale within hacker communities.
Given the scale of the Pixlr data loss and the implications for consumers in terms of personal images being made available online, Robert Prigge, CEO of Jumio looks at the issue for Digital Journal.
According to Prigge: “Pixlr’s breach, which exposed usernames, email addresses and hashed passwords, puts 1.9 million users at risk of being victimized for fraud.”
In terms of what may happen with the data, Prigge notes: “Cybercriminals can use this breached user data to access accounts set up with this information (including banking portals, social media accounts, healthcare sites and more). Simply resetting passwords is no longer an efficient method to keep user accounts safe.”
As to how to prevent these issues, Prigge says the responsibility rests with each business: “It’s time online businesses stop relying on usernames and passwords to protect accounts. Instead, organizations can implement a more secure alternative like biometric authentication (leveraging a person’s unique human traits to verify identity), which allows online organizations to confirm the authorized user is the one logging in and ensures their personal data is safe from malicious actors.”
