Discord.io, a popular online platform that allowed its users to create custom links to their discord channel, suffered a significant data breach, as per reports. Hackers were able to steal the personal information of around 76,000 users. A hacker called Akhira is responsible for this breach and has already stated their demands to the company in exchange for the leaked data. Read to know more.
Discord.io to Shut Down Forever?
As you try to open the Website, a message reading ‘we are stopping all operations for the foreseeable future.’ will appear on your screen. The breach occurred on Monday, 14th August 2023, and the website was taken down shortly after that. A warning was issued for all the users who made their accounts before 2018, as their passwords could be at risk. Sensitive information like user id, email address, billing address, Discord ID, Etc, are part of the stolen records.
Representatives from Discord wrote, “On the night of the 14th of August, Discord.io suffered a major data breach, resulting in content from our database being leaked to unknown actors, We were made aware of the breach later on in the day, and after confirming the content of the breach, we decided to shut down all services and operations.”
How is Discord.io Responding To The Leak?
The website was taken down shortly after the breach. A full report on all the leaked information was posted on the site. The team is currently looking into the breach as they wrote, “We are still investigating the breach, but we believe that the breach was caused by a vulnerability in our website’s code, which allowed an attacker to gain access to our database. The attacker then proceeded to download the entire database, and put it up for sale on a 3rd party site.“
Discord.io is currently asking all the users who onboarded the platform before 2018 to change their passwords if they’re using the same on any other platform. As a part of the security operation, Discord is currently rewriting the entire website code and is making a complete change in its website security measures.
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What do the Hackers Want From Discord.io?
As per reports by BleepingComputer, a hacker who appears to be known as ‘Akhirah’ is responsible for this act; the hacker was offering the breached data for sale on the website. As Bleeping Computer approached the hacker to know about their intentions, Akhirah replied by saying that money wasn’t entirely the driving motive behind this breach; the fact that Discord isn’t updating its user marketplace policy was also one of the reasons for the attack on the popular site.
It was alleged that Discord links its marketplace to illegal and harmful content on the internet. Akhirah explained their motive by writing, “It’s not just about money; some of the servers they overlook I (am) talking about pedophilia and similar things, they should blacklist them and not allow them.“
All We Know So Far –
The staff from Discord.io insisted that the website doesn’t store any information on the payment record of the users as all the payments are made through PayPal and Stripe. Akhirah revealed that many people had approached them to buy the breached data to hack another person’s data to expose them on the internet.
They’re still waiting for Discord’s team to respond to his conditions to remove illegal and harmful content from their site. Lesser sensitive data leaked include registration dates, coin balance, Avatars, User ID, etc. According to reports, a full refund will be initiated for anyone who purchased the subscription on or before 30 days ago.
A traveler by passion and writer by profession, Pranjali is an extremely chill and bubbly girl who enjoys the pleasures of little things in life. Backed by an engineering background she enjoys writing about tech while constantly exploring new ways to make her work better.
Pranjali Maurya