Opera Sync May Have Been Hacked, Opera Advises Users to Change Passwords

Users of the Opera browser on either desktop or mobile will be familiar with Opera Sync, the service that allows them to back up their browser data and settings on their devices across all platforms. According to Opera, unauthorized parties, in this case hackers, may have breached the service’s servers and possibly gained access to sensitive user data like login credentials.

As such, the company has been sending users emails alerting them of the potential breach and advising them to enter new passwords after it reset the old ones in order to protect them from the hackers. In some instances, data harvested by hackers in such instances has ended up being put on sale in the dark web to the highest bidder.

“We take your data security very seriously and want to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this might have caused you,” reads part of the email which was sent to me and many users of the service. According to Opera, only under 1.7 million people used Opera Sync in the last one month, a far cry from the over 350 million people that use Opera. “The remaining Opera browser users who do not use Opera sync, do not need to take any actions,” adds a statement released by the company on August 26th while reporting the breach.