UPDATED 22:19 EDT / MAY 19 2019

SECURITY

Hacking forum for trading stolen credentials hacked by other hackers

OGusers, a popular forum for trading stolen account credentials, has itself been hacked and details of members were published on another hacking forum.

The hack started with an administrator telling users May 12 that a hard drive failure had erased a few months worth of private messages and forums posts, but a backup from January had brought the site back, minus more recent activity.

That “hard drive failure” wasn’t all that it seemed, however. The administrator of rival hacking community RaidForums uploaded the entire OGusers database for free May 16. The database holds usernames, email addresses, hashed passwords, private messages and IP address for nearly 113,000 users.

Although the passwords may have been hashed, the encryption method was MD5, an older form of encryption that can easily be hacked, putting the passwords of all users of the forum at risk.

“I have uploaded the data from this database breach along with their website source files,” an administrator wrote on RaidForums. “Their hashing algorithm was the default salted MD5 which surprised me, anyway the website owner has acknowledged data corruption but not a breach so I guess I’m the first to tell you the truth…. according to his statement he didn’t have any recent backups so I guess I will provide one on this thread lmfao.”

Suffice it to say, OGusers members are not impressed with the news, with some fearing that the hack may have been orchestrated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation since the forum also covers SIM swapping.

Ironically, after the hack had been disclosed, an OGusers administrator said that though he understands everyone’s frustration, “you must realize other sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox, Forums you have used in the past, and many more have been breached at least once.”

There’s no evidence that the FBI or other law enforcement agencies were behind the hack, but now that the user database is online, it’s likely that they will be taking a deep interest in it.

The last word should go to Brian Krebs, who was one of the first to detail the hack Saturday. “It’s difficult not to admit feeling a bit of schadenfreude in response to this event,” Krebs wrote. “It’s gratifying to see such a comeuppance for a community that has largely specialized in hacking others.”

Image: RaidForums

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