Destructoid's User Records Compromised

January 19, 2009

Irreverent video game site Destructoid is cleaning up a bit of a mess this morning.

According to an e-mail we received from Destructoid editor Niero, a hacker cracked the site's user database over the weekend:

This is the letter every web site operator hopes he never has to write: it seems a glitch in our web site allowed someone to exploit the database this weekend. We have confirmed that the intruder succesfully obtained everyone's username and password.

As soon as we were alerted we shut down all servers, changed all passwords, took our forums offline, and notified everyone via email... We're doing everything we can do prevent this from ever happening again and deeply apologize for this incovenience.

On the bright side, we intentionally store very little personally identifiable information. However, you may still be at risk: If you frequently use the same password for other web services... we strongly urge you to update your password ASAP...

Destructoid has reported the incident to IC3 (FBI's internet crime complaint
arm)... We are also offering a $1,000 award to anyone with information that leads us to prosecuting the intruder...

Posted in Crime File Law Enforcement Media Privacy Technology

Comments

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by kalpsiz1 on Tue, 06/09/2009 - 11:58.

thank you admin

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by MarcL on Tue, 01/20/2009 - 12:15.

I've gotta wonder why they would store passwords in a readable/decipherable form anyways...

Did they store them as plain text? encrypted?

I would hope they would hash the password, so that it can't be read, but only confirmed for login purposes.

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by Sigma 7 on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 15:20.

Thankfully, my E-mail address password is different than Destructoid's. However, given the quantity of passwords that I have to save for the many different sites, I'm kind of forced to use a set of three common passwords, especially since it's a bit difficult to automatically transfer saved passwords from one comptuer to another.

I do have a password file, but even that's a bit fatiguing to search each time.

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by Arcanagos on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 14:04.

This is why you should ALWAYS be careful about your internet security... some useful tips (that hopefully should be obvious to most) if anyone's interested:

NEVER click a seemingly random link posted on a forum unless its to a site you know and trust... sometimes they might be legit, but sometimes the links contain hidden keyloggers designed to steal passwords and (in the worst cases) credit card numbers (these have been rampant on the WoW forums lately so I thought it'd be worth mentioning)

If you surf a lot... ALWAYS use Firefox with the Noscript addon... a lot of "driveby" spyware downloading is done through javascripts and noscript blocks those unless you whitelist the site (which only takes about 2 clicks)

NEVER, EVER use the same password for two different internet accounts... if one account gets compromised... you lose them all.

ALWAYS download antispyware and antivirus protection and run them regularly (i usually run mine about once every 1-2 weeks, but I dont surf or download much so it may be different for you)... some good free ones are AVG antivirus, Spybot: search and destroy, and Lavasoft Ad-Aware

Hope this helps, feel free to add on to this if i missed anything

"Go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend. Do it in the name of Heaven, Jack Thompson'll justify it in the end." - nightwng2000

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by hellfire7885 on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 15:20.

I jsut downloaded Noscript, thanks.

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by Wraith108 on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 17:57.

There's a addon for Firefox called passwordmaker that's good as it uses a master PW on your computer and makes a random one for each site you use it on. Also you can get a keystroke scrambler too.

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by insanejedi on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 13:53.

luckly I don't use Destructoid. But the lucky ones live to feel guilty, so I feel bad for anyones accounts outside of Destructoid that may have been comprimised, especially ones linking to personal banking accounts and such.

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by Wraith108 on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 13:45.

A similar thing happened to me some punks hacked a forum I use and then I found I couldn't get into MSN anymore. Fortunately MS reacted quickly to my E-mail. It wasn't fun though.

Re: Destructoid's User Records Compromised

Submitted by DarkTetsuya on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 13:02.

... Yeah I saw the email. ><; (Luckily my cohorts have a site upgrade in the works, tho the worst I've had to worry about is rogue spambots on our forums :/)

300 Episodes and counting: http://www.orangeloungeradio.com/

400 Episodes and counting: http://www.orangeloungeradio.com/

Shout box

Cheater87: R18+ heading for Australian parliament http://www.gamespot.com/news/6350339.html02/14/2012 - 1:14am

Uncharted NES: David Jaffe Rails Against Storytelling Games- http://slashdot.org/palm/10/12/02/13/1943236_1.shtml02/13/2012 - 5:04pm

DorthLous: Australian government holding anti-piracy talk behind closed door: http://delimiter.com.au/2012/02/13/govt-holds-second-secret-anti-piracy-meeting/02/13/2012 - 12:31pm

DorthLous: SONY new CEO says Hardware is important, but the future lies in content and service: http://www.techworld.com.au/article/414925/incoming_sony_ceo_hot_gadgets_aren_t_enough_anymore02/13/2012 - 12:27pm

Andrew Eisen: That article is over five years old, Uncharted. A fun blast from the past though.02/12/2012 - 10:47pm

Uncharted NES: Critics: 'Left Behind' game glorifies violence- http://tinyurl.com/wu64s02/12/2012 - 4:34pm

Zen: I felt Brutal Legends was a funny & beautiful look at the world of rock from Double Fines point of view. The only parts I wasn't hot for were the RTS bits as it felt forced. Otherwise fantastic.02/12/2012 - 1:34pm

DorthLous: Passed 1.5M$. And I'd also say that Brutal Legend is far from being a bad game. I just think it was a few levels under what people expected from the people working on the project.02/11/2012 - 8:25am

Technogeek: Brutal Legend wasn't bad so much as "marketing had no idea how the game actually played", causing it to suffer accordingly.02/10/2012 - 10:38pm

RedMage: It looks the CIA's website has been DDOS'ed. Anon?02/10/2012 - 7:52pm

RedMage: Brutal Legend.02/10/2012 - 7:52pm

ddrfr33k: Has anything Tim Schafer ever made been of crap caliber? I'm struggling to think of one...02/10/2012 - 7:37pm

Guamish: I think it is in good hands. Tim did a game for the GDC award show and that was fun for how short it was.02/10/2012 - 12:22pm

Andrew Eisen: It'll be tragic if the game ultimately sucks.02/10/2012 - 12:17pm

james_fudge: $1.3 million02/10/2012 - 11:32am

Uncharted NES: Germany Says It Won't Sign ACTA [Update: ... Yet]- http://tinyurl.com/7r2twrg02/10/2012 - 11:21am

Andrew Eisen: Damn. Double Fine's Kickstarter fund has already passed a million dollars.02/09/2012 - 8:16pm

Andrew Eisen: Audrey didn't quote the sassy parts. Here's IGN's article: http://wii.ign.com/articles/121/1218359p1.html And here's my original post: http://tinyurl.com/7y68a3902/09/2012 - 7:50pm

james_fudge: I hope you some said something sassy! Where's the link?02/09/2012 - 7:46pm

Andrew Eisen: Hey, neat. IGN quoted a blog I had writen only two hours earlier. I certainly timed that one pretty well.02/09/2012 - 7:38pm

All shouts

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