Amateur hackers are alarmed with the apparent demise of LeakedSource, a controversial breach notification site that’s been accused of doing more harm than good.
U. S. law enforcement has allegedly confiscated its servers, and now some hackers are wondering if customers of LeakedSource might be next.
“All the people who used PayPal, credit card, etc. to buy membership, the FBI now have your email, payment details and lookup history,” wrote one user on HackForums.net.
LeakedSource had functioned as a giant repository with more than 3 billion internet accounts — all of which had been compiled from stolen databases, taken from the likes of LinkedIn, MySpace, and Dropbox. For as little as US$2 a day, anyone could use the site to look up password and other login information.
That made it particularly popular with users on HackForums.net, a site filled with discussion on hacking techniques often by amateurs known as “script kiddies.”
But whether the FBI really shut down LeakedSource is still unclear. The site itself has been offline and its operators have been mum on Twitter and through email.
In addition, the U. S. Department of Justice has declined to comment.
Nevertheless, experts in data breach notification said the situation with LeakedSource was inevitable.
“They weren’t handling the data ethically or responsibly,” said a data collector who goes by the name Keen. He runs a separate notification site at Vigilante.
