Earlier today (July 13, 2012), we reported on the hacking attack that led to the NVIDIA Forums being completely shut down until further notice.
We suspect whoever did it probably chose Friday the 13th on purpose, to make a joke.
Regardless of the reason for the timing, NVIDIA has to suspend the boards for as much time as it takes to sort the mess out.
One detail not provided initially was the number of affected accounts. The folks at The Verge managed to get an update on that first.
About 290,000 forum registered users had their passwords stolen, along with the “About Me” info (which, to be fair, was public anyway).
The attack also affected 100,000 NVIDIA Developers Zone users and 1,200 on the NVIDIA Research site.
The passwords, fortunately, were all hashed with a random salt value, so they are actually very secure, but NVIDIA suggests changing it anyway, maybe to something you don't use on other sites (since the associated e-mail addresses were stolen as well).
At any rate, the count currently stands at 391,200. No ETA on when the forums will be back up. NVIDIA wants to be sure things are secure again.
Source
We suspect whoever did it probably chose Friday the 13th on purpose, to make a joke.
Regardless of the reason for the timing, NVIDIA has to suspend the boards for as much time as it takes to sort the mess out.
One detail not provided initially was the number of affected accounts. The folks at The Verge managed to get an update on that first.
About 290,000 forum registered users had their passwords stolen, along with the “About Me” info (which, to be fair, was public anyway).
The attack also affected 100,000 NVIDIA Developers Zone users and 1,200 on the NVIDIA Research site.
The passwords, fortunately, were all hashed with a random salt value, so they are actually very secure, but NVIDIA suggests changing it anyway, maybe to something you don't use on other sites (since the associated e-mail addresses were stolen as well).
At any rate, the count currently stands at 391,200. No ETA on when the forums will be back up. NVIDIA wants to be sure things are secure again.
Source
