According to an ethical hacker from the International Institute of Cyber Security, a hacker, known as “Gnosticplayers”, offers to disclose personal details of 26 million users from six companies around the world in exchange for Bitcoin transfers. This is the fourth time that the hacker puts for sale stolen information in dark web forums in the most recent months.
According to the ethical hacker, depending on
the compromised company the data cache could vary; however, most contain email
addresses, user names, IP addresses, and some user-made configurations of each
platform.
Apparently, the companies involved in this
fourth incident are GameSalad (video game developer), Estante Virtual (a South
American bookstore), Coubic and LifeBear (booking management Services), in
addition to YouthManual, a vocational service for youngsters. This information
is for sale in Dream, a very popular hacking forum in dark
web.
- According
to the ethical hacker report, about 1.5 million of GameSalad users have been
affected - Virtual
Shelf contributed 5.5 million of affected users, leaking user names, email
addresses and passwords - On
the other hand, 3.8 million registers of LifeBear users are also exposed
Several reports mention that Gnosticplayers is
selling this information to demonstrate the insufficient security measures that
these platforms operate on. An informant claims to have contacted the hacker
and, when questioned him about his motives, said: “I feel that no one has learned
anything; that annoys me. It’s frustrating to find this kind of security flaws in
the year 2019 “, the hacker mentioned, according to the informant.
Through the hacking forum, Gnosticplayers said
it still has undisclosed information; some believe that the hacker decided not
to disclose all the information he has because some companies would have
contacted him before to reach an agreement.
As mentioned above, this is not the first time
Gnosticplayers sells dark web stolen information. The hacker has been trading
with stolen information for at least three times the last two months. During
the previous three rounds of sales, it was discovered that more than 700
million of user data has been sold.
