There have been a lot of rumors the last two weeks about Dropbox getting hacked and a lot of peoples username and passwords being taken and used by criminals.

Considering a lot of people use Dropbox and keep information in it they consider important, not might be a very good time to do a password change.

What is Dropbox

Dropbox is a website and application you can use on your phone, computer, tablet or laptop to store files online.

How it works is you install the software on your device and save the data you wish to keep and share between Dropbox installed devices.

You might have Dropbox installed on your computer and phone. On your computer you will be able to drag and drop some photos, documents and music into your Dropbox which will save them on the Dropbox server so when you go to your phone and click on Dropbox the same files will show up as it syncs with the server, all over the internet.

A lot of people save important data into Dropbox which is really handy in case you loose your computer or phone, you still have your files which are protected by your password.

Dropbox comes in very handy when traveling and not wanting to bring a computer with you all the time. Keeping important travel documents in your Dropbox accessible by a phone can be very handy in sticky situations.

The Hack

The breach is said to be linked to hack which happened in 2012 and estimated some 70 million passwords to Dropbox accounts where compromised.

The good news is the passwords which where compromised have been hashed. Which means it will still take the criminals and people trying to use your account a little guess work to do. But there are reports it happening.

This week many people received emails from Dropbox asking them to change their passwords. If you are one of these people it is strongly advised you do it.

I was not one of the people who had their Dropbox account credentials leaked online, but it was still enough of a incentive for me to change it. And its a good idea to change passwords to periodically and to characters you do not regularly use. No names and dates etc,

Check if your account has been compromised

If you didn’t receive an email from Dropbox for whatever reason and still want to know if your Dropbox account was compromised or not, there is a very easy way to find out.

Go to, haveibeenpwned and enter your email address to known account you use. It is important to use the email you used when you signed up and use for Dropbox.

This is a legitimate website which looks for passwords which might have been compromised through prominent hacks.