June 4 (AZINS) Content aggregation platform Flipboard has emailed its users about a security breach in its systems that could have potentially compromised the account data and passwords of its users. The company said a hacker or hackers could have created copies of its database containing the data in two separate time windows ranging between June 2018 and April 2019.

Flipboard says the security breach could also have compromised its access tokens, through which users give Flipboard permissions to link with other third party apps. The company said there was no evidence that these access tokens have been misused. However, Flipboard assured its users in the email that the passwords and other data were stored in an encrypted format, and that whoever may have gotten their hands on them may not be able to have decrypted the data.

"As a precaution, we have reset all users' passwords, even though the passwords were cryptographically protected and not all users' account information was involved. You can continue to use Flipboard on devices from which you are already logged in. When you access your Flipboard account from a new device, or the next time you log into Flipboard after logging out of your account, you will be asked to create a new password," read the email from Flipboard.

"As another precautionary step, we disconnected tokens used to connect to all third-party accounts, and in collaboration with our partners, we replaced all digital tokens or deleted them where applicable," it added.

"Additionally, to help prevent something like this from happening in the future, we implemented enhanced security measures and continue to look for additional ways to strengthen the security of our systems. We also notified law enforcement," Flipboard said.

The company also made sure to assuage fears over the nature of data that may have been compromised. It claimed that the company does not collect any data from users, and hence the breach did not involve any truly sensitive user data like US social security numbers or other government-issued IDs, bank account, credit card, or other financial information.