Pornhub announced this week that its Premium account holders’ data has been hacked.
The data was accessed through a third-party analytics platform Pornhub uses called Mixpanel.
Hacking group ShinyHunters is linked to the incident. It is part of the same cybercrime network reportedly behind recent Qantas data breaches.
Pornhub confirmed that no passwords, identification documents, or financial information were accessed.
Incident
In a statement, Pornhub said an unauthorised party accessed data from third-party analytics service Mixpanel.
The platform’s Premium account users were impacted by the breach and a “limited set of analytics events” were accessed.
It said the incident was “not a breach of Pornhub Premium’s systems”.
Mixpanel
In November, Mixpanel detected a ‘smishing’ security breach.
Smishing is a type of phishing scam where text messages containing links that can compromise data are sent to targets.
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Scammers will often pose as banks or government organisations to gain victims’ trust.
Mixpanel said the breach impacted “a limited number of customers”. OpenAI confirmed some of its data also may have been included.
ShinyHunters
The group ShinyHunters has been linked to the incident by IT news outlet BleepingComputer.
Hackers reportedly sent emails to Mixpanel customers, including Pornhub.
They claimed they stole 94GB of Pornhub Premium data with 200 million records of personal information.
ShinyHunters told BleepingComputer the data included historical watch, search, and download activity.
In July, cybercrime network Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters (SLSH), were identified as being behind Qantas data breaches.
The network is made up of three groups, including ShinyHunters.
Qantas said it had detected “unusual activity” at a third-party call centre.
It later confirmed its customer data had been compromised, including names, email addresses, birth dates and Frequent Flyer numbers of at least 5.7 million customers.
