UhOh! – Of porn and passwords

For those not in the know – or living under a stump – there are websites on the internet that cater to a more adult clientele and the content that these sites provide is also one of the most sought out by internet users (I expect mostly men). In fact  several of these sites fall into the Top 100 website (like a Fortune 500 company of the web) list meaning they are within the top 100 visited sites on the entire internet.

YouPorn.com is one such site and is one of the most popular sites on the net. Unfortunately it appears that youporn.com has been caught with their pants down when it comes to securing their user’s data(did you see what I did there?)!

The Huffington Post reports that up to 1 million user email addresses, passwords (and in some cases birth dates) used for the site’s chat feature have been compromised. Initial reports indicate that the email/password information was stored in plain text on a server accessible from the internet, which is a HUGE no no!

With a quick search I was able to locate over 6000 of the compromised email address password combinations and interestingly there are already a few analysis reports of the leaked passwords.

General security protocol is that (at least) passwords be hashed and salted – a method to encrypt them – so in the event they should fall into the wrong hands they would be nearly impossible to read and use. Obviously this did not happen in the case of youporn.com.

So what? I don’t visit those sites!

Well, that’s great, but judging by the numbers there are quite a few who do. As in the case of any breach the password/email combination becomes very important because people all too often reuse this combination over multiple sites.

Because of the sensitive nature of this site’s content I believe another issue may crop up – that of using shame to blackmail the users through email or use the birthdate/email combination in a attempt to phish other data that could be used to compromise one’s identity.

If you have ever given any information to youporn.com I highly suggest you:

• Change your passwords associated with the email address and any other sites you use that email address on.
• Use a strong password (use our password test if needed) and create a different one for each site requiring a login.
• Be very suspicious of any emails that include your birthdate and/or suggest that some ill may come due to your surfing habits unless you do as they ask!

*I apologize for any puns used in this article, but it was really hard to resist! DCT uses very strong hash/salt techniques to store email addresses and passwords.