The hacker group ShinyHunters announced the theft of data from premium subscribers of the largest adult site Pornhub and threatens to publish it, Reuters reports. Cybercriminals have already provided data samples, and their authenticity has been partially confirmed.
At least three subscribers of the resource — two Canadians and one American — confirmed the authenticity of the data on condition of anonymity.
In exchange for not publishing the information and deleting it, the hackers known as ShinyHunters demanded a ransom in bitcoins; the administration of the adult site itself and the Canadian company that owns it did not comment on the incident.
According to the site's own statistics, Pornhub has a daily audience of 100 million users and an annual audience of 36 billion.
Representatives of ShinyHunters contacted Reuters and provided data on 14 premium subscription users, which grants access to high-definition videos, ad-free viewing, and support for virtual reality devices.
How the group obtained the data was not disclosed by its representatives, and it could not be established by other means. 3 out of the 14 individuals mentioned in the data samples confirmed that they had previously been premium subscribers.
Previously, ShinyHunters reported hacks and data thefts from Salesforce and British Jaguar Land Rover. The latter was forced to suspend operations at its car factories for an entire month following the cyberattack.
