Bank details, social security numbers, passport information and addresses for THOUSANDS of porn stars leaked online
THOUSANDS of porn stars have had their personal information leaked after a porn site left them exposed in a massive data breach.
Information ranging from names, dates of birth, fingerprints, passports and marriage certificates of more than 4,000 were accessed, according to vpnMentor researchers.
Citizenship statuses, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, bank cards, nationalities, military service info, birthplaces, signatures and other identifying information was found .
VpnMentor also discovered handwritten biographies from the , which included their sexual preferences, “hopes and dreams,” current job and favorite things, “from music to food to hobbies.”
Nearly 20GB of unencrypted data, including at least 875,000 files, was discovered on January 3, .
Countries affected include: the U.S., , China, Israel, , Germany, Italy, , Ukraine, Brazil and Peru, among others.
P****Cash, described as an “explicit ‘cam’ affiliate network” that owns adult cam websites, is said to have stored sensitive information of the porn stars in an unsecured database.
Per vpnMentor, their affiliate network boasts “66 million registered members on their webcam chat arena, ImLive, alone.”
The network’s partners are said to include: BeNaughty, Xtube and Pornhub.
The report states some of the folders of documents were a few weeks old, while others “could be up to 15-20 years old.”
VpnMentor said it contacted P****Cash to notify them about the leak, but they didn’t hear back.
Eventually, ImLive responded to their emails “stating that they would take care of it and pass on the information to the P****Cash tech team.”
The leak, vpnMentor says, “represents a potentially severe threat to those whose data has been exposed.”
“It has many implications, all of which could very well ruin the lives of the models/actors involved.”
The researchers said such personal information that is “regularly” sold on the dark web, “often at very attractive prices.”
With information like names, addresses, credit card numbers, social security numbers, “you have the full identity theft package at your fingertips.”
The report also notes that such a breach could end up with the porn stars’ pictures and likenesses being part of scams, and the actors themselves could be subject to humiliation and embarrassment.
Additionally, those affected could be “easily” blackmailed or extorted by criminals “threatening to expose them, either publicly, professionally, personally, or any combination thereof.”
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VpnMentor says P****Cash “could have easily avoided this leak if they had taken some basic security measures” to protect the folders.
Those measures include securing servers and implementing proper access rules. Researchers also said: “Never leave a system that doesn’t require authentication open to the internet.”
The researchers described themselves in the report as “ethical hackers” who found the breath while working on a “web mapping project” intended to “help make the internet safer for all users.”
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