Adobe forum cracked, user details dumped

Adobe has shut down a forum after it was compromised by a hacker who stole names, email addresses and hashed passwords for reportedly more than 150,000 users, including Adobe staff and government customers.

Details including usernames, passwords, email addresses, names and phone numbers  were published online affecting organisations including Adobe, the US military and air force, Google, NASA and .edu domains. 

Records for a dozen current or former IT staff from the Australian Federal Department of Immigration, the Northern Territory Department of Education and Training, and Hunter New England Health District were included in the dump.

Adobe conceded its ConnectUsers forum was hacked and has begun resetting user passwords, warning victims to not reuse passwords across web sites.

It said its Connect conferencing platform and other products did not appear to be compromised.

"At this point of our investigation, it appears that the Connectusers.com forum site was compromised by an unauthorised third party," the company said in a statement.

"As a reminder, one of the best ways to protect yourself online is to follow password best practices and use different login credentials across different websites and services.

The hacker known as ViruS_Him, reportedly Egyptian-based, claimed they "hacked into one of Adobe servers [and] gained full access to it [then] dumped the database [which contained] over 150,000 emails [and] passwords with full data for a lot of Adobe customers and partners."

The hacker told SC the exploitation details were sent directly to Adobe's security team  which was working on a patch.

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