Quora says 100 million users may have been affected by data breach

A recently discovered data breach may have exposed the personal information of about 100 million Quora users, the question and answer website said Monday.

Account information, including names, email addresses, encrypted passwords and data imported from linked networks when authorized by users may have been compromised, it said.

"We recently discovered that some user data was compromised as a result of unauthorized access to one of our systems by a malicious third party," Quora Chief Executive Adam D'Angelo wrote in a blog post.

"We are working rapidly to investigate the situation further and take the appropriate steps to prevent such incidents in the future."

"We're in the process of notifying users whose data has been compromised," he added.

Quora is investigating the issue and said it has notified law enforcement officials.

Massive data breaches have become a common occurrence as hackers exploit vulnerabilities in the information technology systems used by businesses.

Last week, Marriott International said hackers had copied data from the reservation database for its Starwood Hotels brand, with unauthorized access dating back to 2014.

Earlier in the year, social networking giant Facebook disclosed a security breach where 29 million users had their personal information exposed.