Drupal.org Security Breach Exposes Personal Information

In an email sent out to members of Drupal.org and Groups.Drupal.org, Holly Ross, Drupal Association Executive Director has advised that a security breach has exposed the personal information of those registered for these sites. Information exposed includes personal information such as usernames, passwords, country information and more.

Hacker image from Shutterstock

This security breach was made possible by malicious files that were placed on association.drupal.org servers via a third-party application used by that site.

Here is the email in its entirety:

Dear community member,

We respect the privacy of your information, which is why, as a precautionary measure, we are writing to let you know about an incident that involves your personal information. The Drupal.org Security and Infrastructure Teams have discovered unauthorized access to account information on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org. Information exposed includes usernames, email addresses, and country information, as well as hashed passwords. However, we are still investigating the incident and may learn about other types of information compromised, in which case we will notify you accordingly.

This unauthorized access was made via third-party software installed on the Drupal.org server infrastructure, and was not the result of a vulnerability within the Drupal software itself. This notice applies specifically to user account data stored on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org, and not to sites running Drupal generally.

We have implemented additional security measures designed to prevent the recurrence of such an attack, and to protect the privacy of our community members.

The next time you attempt to log into your account, you will be required to create a new password.

Below are steps you can take to further protect your personal information online. We encourage you to take preventative measures now to help prevent and detect the misuse of your information.

First, we recommend as a precaution that you change or reset passwords on other sites where you may use similar passwords, even though all passwords on Drupal.org are stored salted and hashed. All Drupal.org passwords are both hashed and salted, although some older passwords on groups.drupal.orgwere not salted. To make your password stronger:

* Do not use passwords that are simple words or phrases
* Never use the same password on multiple sites or services
* Use different types of characters in your password (uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols).

Second, be cautious if you receive emails asking for your personal information and be on the lookout for unwanted spam. It is not our practice to request personal information by email. Also, beware of emails that threaten to close your account if you do not take the “immediate action” of providing personal information.

For more information, please review the security announcement and FAQ at  https://drupal.org/news/130529SecurityUpdate . If you find any reason to believe that your information has been accessed by someone other than yourself, please contact the Drupal Association immediately, by sending an email to  password@association.drupal.org .

We regret that this incident has occurred and want to assure you we are working hard to improve security.

Thank you,
Holly Ross
Drupal Association Executive Director

As mentioned in the email, a security announcement has been made available which explains the issue in further detail. You can find it here: https://drupal.org/news/130529SecurityUpdate

For those who are members of these sites and use the same password elsewhere, we recommend you update those accounts with new passwords immediately.

Stay tuned for more info.