Massive Hack Alert: 2.3 Million WIRED Records Exposed in Surprising Data Breach

This database has had dealings with hackers, who claim to have hacked into the database of well-known technology and culture market magazine WIRED.com. They said they published 2.3 million user records online. It has been rippling in hacker forums and security news sites for the past several days.

Almost entirely regarded as a major possible cyber offensive against Condé Nast, which WIRED belongs to, it holds one of the richest and finest portfolios of online media outlets worldwide, such as Vogue, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. The hackers have also claimed to access another 40 million records of users under Condé Nast, apart from that of WIRED.

What has been found in the leaked data?

So far, leaks have mostly consisted of personal data about individuals, such as:

* Email addresses
* Full names
* User Ids
* Dates, with updated timestamps of account creations

In some cases it has also included last login details and other types of metadata. While passwords and payment data were excluded, the potential risk of public exposure existed for email and contact information.

Another report states that this leaked database is reachable on BreachForums and Breach Stars, which is believed to have cloned much of users' personal information spotted in users' account data in five years.

Condé Nast: What has it said?

So far, no public statement has been made by Condé Nast, nor has the company confirmed the breach or any rumors surrounding it. Research and security analysts are now investigating if the information relates to the company's internal subscription/identity platform, but samples of data have been matched with actual information from outside investigations, so at least some of it seems to be true.

A Warning to the Users

And it is already about time: it would be truly more engaging vigilance for users from WIRED.com or any slice of Condé Nast.

Floods of phishing mails or social-engineering-attack scams.
Change the password if you've used the same one to your personal email or for other sites.
Avoid any unknown link clicks or opening weird attachments.

Most security researchers opine that using a dark web monitoring service would be the most secure step forward, paired with the signing up of a hacker-identification/notification service if necessary.

Conclusion

It is likely the most serious incident of an online data breach that a WIRED database represented, small or big, sufficient no-cost online security threats proved significant enough to compromise information from millions of users. Organizations need to tighten the reins on data privacy and be more security-aware on the part of users. This will continue to develop, but it will be clearer when Condé Nast makes an official statement.

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