Controversial online hack repository LeakedSource is offline following unconfirmed reports that the owner was raided by authorities who seized the servers running the site.

The site, which had been running for a number of years, collected and collated hacked data available on the dark web. It first came to widespread prominence in 2016 when it published the details of high-profile hacks of prominent companies such as Yahoo Inc., LinkedIn Inc., MySpace and Dropbox Inc., many of them previously undisclosed.

While compiling hack data isn’t a crime in and of itself given that it has research and journalistic uses, where LeakedSource crossed the line was in selling access to those databases to anyone who wanted access to them. That gave access to hackers and others with nefarious intent.

The news of the raid came via a post that originally appeared on OGFlip (since deleted) from a user by the name of LTD:

“Yeah you heard it here first. Sorry for all you kids who don’t have all your own Databases.

Leakedsource is down forever and won’t be coming back. Owner raided early this morning. Wasn’t arrested, but all SSD’s got taken, and Leakedsource servers got subpoena’d and placed under federal investigation. If somehow he recovers from this and launches LS again, then I’ll be wrong. But I am not wrong.

Also, this is not a troll thread.

EDIT: Don’t forget that LTD was the first person to make this news public.”

“The information in data breaches can have a serious impact on people’s lives and it needs to be treated with the utmost of respect,” Have I Been Pwned founder Troy Hunt told ZDNet. “Providing the passwords of data breach victims to anyone willing to pay for them was always going to lead to law enforcement eventually stepping in.”

While the seizure has yet to be confirmed by a government agency, LeakedSource users are understandably concerned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation or similar body will now have access to all their transactions with the site given that many of them used their LeakedSource accounts for illegal purposes.

Image: Pixabay/Public Domain CC0.