The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the nonprofit organization that coordinates databases of unique identifiers, particularly the internet's global Domain Name System – has fallen victim to a hacker attack. Details of users who had created profiles on the organization's public website have been exposed.
An announcement on ICANN's website says email addresses and hashed passwords were acquired by an unauthorized person. No evidence has yet been found that any profiles have been accessed.
Users' passwords were not leaked, but instead hashes or checksums of user passwords were exposed. The encrypted passwords (hashes) are not easy to reverse. As a precaution, ICANN asks all users to reset their password next time they attempt to login and not use the same password elsewhere.
There is no indication on what motivated this security breach.
A version of this article appeared originally on sister site SCMagazineUK.com.