No website is invulnerable. Since we know from Reddit’s godawful official app they don’t do development very well, no doubt the website also has vulnerable holes.
They didn’t access the data through a vulnerability in the code, they phished some employee credentials and access it that way.
That in itself is a vulnerability. In my company we check for impossible travel, browser variance, etc. Credentials are only one aspect of this.
True, I just interpreted your comment differently to that.
Probably should’ve invested in better security instead of trying to chase tech trends like NFTs.
You mean the 100th award I could buy was starting to be overkill? /s
Thanks for the gold kind stranger! 🤮
Thanks for the puke kind strager
Thanks for the thanks thanks thanks.
Hopefully they publish the data so we can add to the fediverse
The article says, the data supposedly contains information about Reddit’s tracking system. I don’t think we want that in the FediVerse
I’ve seen a few sites welcome the news with glee, as though Reddit’s leadership is going to be strongly affected. That’s childish and myopic. This is bad news for everyone.
Whether or not Reddit pays, we should assume the data will make its way into the hands of people who (further) weaponize it against Reddit’s users, e.g. people who’ve post risque photos of themselves or shared compromising details through throwaway accounts can be doxxed or paired with their normal accounts via their IP or other common details. DMs and other private account details might contain addresses and other private or compromising information, too.
If Reddit knew about the breach earlier and didn’t do their due diligence to alert users, then that’s further condemnation of their leadership and priorities, but it doesn’t undo the damage this might cause users.
If Reddit were to pay BlackCat, then it would further enrich, reward, and encourage them. If, as is more likely, it doesn’t, then the blowback it receives (especially from any high profile consequences of the leak) might encourage other companies to pay up in future.
From the article:
We can be pretty sure of what to doesn’t include, and that’s user data such as account details, passwords or payment information. That’s because, from the very start, Reddit made it quite clear that the ‘live’ production systems holding such data were not breached.
That’s because, from the very start, Reddit made it quite clear that the ‘live’ production systems holding such data were not breached.
Because Reddit is known for being forthright and honest…
Yes but note the specific details of that assumption and their reasoning: it’s based on reddit’s announcement of the security incident a few months ago which starts:
Based on our investigation so far, Reddit user passwords and accounts are safe…
Now, look again at what BlackCat has promised in this leak:
Instead, BlackCat is teasing such revelations as “all the statistics they track about their users,” and data concerning how Reddit “silently censors users.”
80 GB of “statistics and data” about Reddit’s users is a lot. It may not contain raw IP addresses, but we know that IP matching is one of the ways Reddit catches sock puppets, so there may at least be a hash that could be used to identify accounts held by the same users.
Am I going too far worrying about PMs and other details? Maybe. It really depends on the honesty and competence of BlackCat and Reddit, and the article author’s assumptions based on their statements.
This is assuming that the group is telling the truth about what they found.
@Phoeniqz If Reddit is only announcing the hack now then that is very likely going to be a legal problem in a number of US jurisdictions, not to mention EU and others.
It happened a while back and is just popping up again now because they’re capitalizing on the Reddit drama. So I don’t really have an opinion on them – hacking bad, etc but I don’t really care.
