No intrusion found, Dropbox investigation continues

Added by Gary Dunn on July 20, 2012

Officials at Dropbox said on Friday the outside experts they hired to investigate a possible security breach at the well-known file hosting and synchronizing service.

Users in Europe reported, on the company’s forums, on Wednesday that they were receiving unwanted commercial email (spam) on email addresses they only use for logging in to Dropbox.

In a statement posted on its forums, the company said the outside experts had not found evidence of unauthorized activity; the company has contacted users that were reporting receiving spam messages, and reaffirmed that the company’s top priority is security.

Some experts reportedly speculated about possible alternate causes including infection of users’ computers by malware (computer virus) or users’ computers could be running third-party applications that integrate with Dropbox.

Dropbox is a free service that allows users to store and synchronize their files with their computer and mobile devices that include Apple’s iPhone and iPad, Android smartphones, and BlackBerry phones. Dropbox users can securely share files not only between their own devices, but also between other Dropbox users and users that do not have a Dropbox account.

Security breaches and disclosure of user details involving services like Yahoo, Match.com, eHarmony, and others have recently been in the news. The most well-known breach is to date occurred on July 12 2012 at Yahoo! where details of about 400,000 users were posted online. A subsequent investigation found the leaked details were from a company that Yahoo! had previously acquired, called Yahoo! Videos.