Hackers Offer Stolen CNET Database for Bitcoin in Publicity Stunt
A
group of Russian hackers that managed to steal CNET’s user database has
made that information available for bitcoin, in what seems like a
publicity stunt.
The group, which calls itself ‘wOrm’, says the database contains the
accounts of more than a million users, including their usernames,
emails, passwords and other information.
The asking price for the source code and the database was 1 BTC, roughly $615 at the time of writing. However, CNET was later told that the group has no plans to decrypt the passwords or to complete the sale of the database.
The offer, which was apparently made to gain attention for the
group’s “altruistic” work, was quickly rescinded. WOrm has previously
carried out similar attacks on websites belonging to the BBC, Adobe
Systems and Bank of America.
CNET admits breach
CNET confirmed the attack and
admitted that several servers were accessed and compromised. The
security flaw that allowed the breach has since been patched, but the
hackers managed to steal a significant amount of data before the attack
was detected and addressed.
The hackers say they exploited a hole in CNET’s implementation of the
Symfony PHP framework. Although the group initially offered to sell the
database, it insists its main motivation is security awareness.
“We are driven to make the Internet a better and safer [place] rather
than a desire to protect copyright. I want to note that the experts
responsible for bezopastnost [security] in cnet very good work but not
without flaws,” a wOrm member told CNET via twitter.
No cause for alarm?
CNET has not advised its users to change their passwords yet, as the
compromised passwords were encrypted and wOrm has stated it will not try
to decrypt them.
Web security expert Robert Hansen agrees CNET readers are not at
risk. He points out that the hackers were careful not to reveal the
“full path to the actual exploit” and that it informed the public of the
attack.
“It definitely can feel like a slap in the face to an organization to
be hacked, but in reality, most of the time in circumstances like this
it’s actually a good thing,” Hansen said.