--- description: Dropbox recently reset many of its users passwords due to a data breach that took place back in 2012. title: How to See If Your Dropbox Account Was Hacked image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt344b61301a9fe283/698879eaa988ca0df66b6344/biztech-illos-data-security2.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Business](/section/business/) ## Business Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) ## Tech Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # How to See If Your Dropbox Account Was Hacked by [David Meyer / Fortune](/author/fortune/) ## David Meyer / Fortune Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 31, 2016 8:51 PM CUT  The U.K. government has said all commercial pornography websites will have to effectively verify their users are over 18 from the end of 2018\. The move has drawn criticism from privacy and free speech activists. The U.K. government has said all commercial pornography websites will have to effectively verify their users are over 18 from the end of 2018\. The move has drawn criticism from privacy and free speech activists.Martin Gee for TIME by [David Meyer / Fortune](/author/fortune/) ## David Meyer / Fortune Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 31, 2016 8:51 PM CUT Dropbox recently [reset many of its users passwords](http://fortune.com/2016/08/26/heres-why-dropbox-is-urging-users-to-reset-their-passwords/ "undefined") due to a data breach that took place back in 2012. However, the scale of that breach has only now become apparent. According to [Motherboard](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hackers-stole-over-60-million-dropbox-accounts "undefined"), the details for a whopping 68,680,741 accounts were stolen. These details included email address and hashed (protected) passwords. Because of the date of the breach, the only people who might be affected by this information floating around now are those who haven’t changed their Dropbox password in four years. Hence the big reset. Security researcher Troy Hunt [confirmed that the hacked data was real](https://www.troyhunt.com/the-dropbox-hack-is-real/ "undefined") by checking his wife’s details for the cloud storage service. Knowing her real Dropbox password, which dated back to 2012, he was able to confirm that the scrambled or hashed version in the hacked data was in fact genuine. Fortunately, he said Dropbox had done a good job of keeping those passwords hard-to-read. “The bcrypt hashing algorithm protecting it is very resilient to cracking and frankly, all but the worst possible password choices are going to remain secure even with the breach now out in the public,” Hunt wrote. Hunt runs a very useful service called “Have I Been Pwned” that lets people search troves of hacked login data for their own email addresses. It now has almost all those credentials from the Dropbox breach in there, so [search away](https://haveibeenpwned.com/ "undefined"). And remember to enable two-factor authentication and to avoid sharing your passwords across multiple services—a Dropbox employee’s own lax practices enabled the theft of all this information in the first place. _This_ [_article_](http://fortune.com/2016/08/31/dropbox-breach-passwords/ "undefined") _originally appeared on_ [_Fortune.com_](http://fortune.com "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4474986/dropbox-hack/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4474986/dropbox-hack/"},"headline":"How to See If Your Dropbox Account Was Hacked","datePublished":"2016-08-31T20:51:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:50:26.864Z","description":"Almost 70 million logins were stolen","url":"https://time.com/4474986/dropbox-hack/","keywords":["Tech","Security"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt344b61301a9fe283/698879eaa988ca0df66b6344/biztech-illos-data-security2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Meyer / Fortune"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt344b61301a9fe283/698879eaa988ca0df66b6344/biztech-illos-data-security2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"U.K. Porn Age Verification","caption":"U.K. Porn Age Verification","creditText":"Martin Gee for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4474986/dropbox-hack/","name":"How to See If Your Dropbox Account Was Hacked"}}]}] ```