Suspicious 4chan hacks can be exposed for a long time, anonymous administrator
Anonymous image board 4chan survived years of controversy. It weathered users and advertisers’ boycotts and accused it of incubating hate speech, which may have fueled mass shootings. Users summoned 4chan to plan hacks such as DDOS attacks, and the conspiracy theories that flew on 4chan even inspired the uprising on January 6 at the U.S. Capitol. However, on Monday night and Tuesday, the platform faced the latest tests after a series of power outages led to speculation that the site had been hacked.
The core feature provided by 4chan is the public anonymity of publishing text and images, but the platform itself does collect information about users, such as their IP addresses. As a result, the breach of the website may represent a massive exposure of data designed to be private.
“4chan is an anonymous message board that often makes people hateful and hateful. Content leaks (if true) will remove some anonymity from 4chan administrators, hosts and gatekeepers,” said Ian Grey, director of analysis and research at security firm Flashpoint. Gray said the billing of image boards as an “anonymous” platform may give users a “wrong sense of security.” “Some users may have registered their email addresses a few years ago when they weren’t very familiar with or worried about their operations.”
On the 4chan board that briefly appeared online, there was a message on the website saying, “You’ve been hacked into XD” and the reports on the website began to circulate. Subsequently, an online account called soyjak.party on the competitor forum allegedly screenshots show the 4chan backend system, as well as a list of alleged 4chan administrator and host usernames, as well as the associated email addresses. Following this post on the 4chan administrator email address, Soyjak.Party users began publishing so-called Doxes, including photos and personal information, including accounts included in the leak.
The connection cannot confirm whether the data is legal. News email addresses related to 4chan and two alleged administrator emails from leaked data did not immediately respond to comments about the hacker and its effectiveness. According to a report by TechCrunch, a host of the website said they thought it was realistic and that the leak was real.
Rumors also began circulating on Tuesday that the violation was the result of the 4chan running legacy, i.e. uncatched software, exposed the platform for attacks. After breaching the violation a decade ago, 4chan founder Christopher Poole, known online as “Moot,” wrote in a blog post:[We] It has been spent (and will continue to spend) spending a lot of time browsing our software and systems to help mitigate and prevent future intrusions. Sorry, it happened and will try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. ”
Emiliano de Cristofaro, a professor of computer science and engineering at UC Riverside, studied the impact of 4Chan on the network, and he said the consequences could be huge if the hacker attack was confirmed.
“Indeed, 4Chan has not been properly maintained and patched for years, which may indicate that the attack is certainly possible,” de Cristofaro said. “There may be some ‘visibility’ users exposed as hosts–traditionally, 4chan users hate them, so they may be targeting. From this, 4chan recovers is hard or at least painful at the speed and cost of being high, so we may really see the end of 4chan as we know it.”
