Pornhub data breach: Who are ShinyHunters, the hackers claiming to steal user data?

The hacking group ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for a data breach affecting select Pornhub Premium users, threatening to publish viewing and search histories unless a Bitcoin ransom is paid.

ShinyHunters said it has records of Pornhub members search history. (Image Source: Pixabay)

ShinyHunters, a prominent hacking group known for infiltrating big tech companies, has claimed that it has stolen member data belonging to the popular adult website Pornhub. The extortion gang has threatened the website that it will publish the search and watch history of its members.

Last week, Pornhub announced that it was impacted by a breach at analytics vendor Mixapanel, after an SMS phishing attack enabled the hacker group to compromise systems.

PornHub said that the security incident had impacted “some Pornhub Premium users. Specifically, this situation affects only select Premium users. It is important to note that this was not a breach of Pornhub Premium’s systems. Passwords, payment details, and financial information remain secure and were not exposed.”

In a statement to Reuters, ShinyHunters said that they are “demanding a ransom payment in Bitcoin to prevent the publication of [Pornhub] data and delete the data.”

Who, or what, is ShinyHunters?

ShinyHunters is a cyber criminal group that gained popularity after Google’s Threat Intelligence Report alerted about a hacking group targeting Gmail users.

The group first rose to fame in 2020 and says it has recorded 91 successful attacks. The cyber criminals are primarily after money, but are also known for damaging several companies’ reputations.

In 2021, ShinyHunters said they were selling data of more than 73 million AT&T customers. It also targeted other tech firms like Salesforce and released more than 2,8 million records relating to customers and corporate partners of Allianz Life. Unlike data breaches,w here hackers are able to gain access to a company’s database to extract valuable information, ShinyHunters and other such groups have been targeting tech firms via voice-based social engineering attacks, also known as vishing.

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In September, the hacking group stole private details of potentially millions of customers from luxury brands like Gucci, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen. Earlier this year, companies like Pandora, Adidas, Chanel, Tiffany and Co, and Cisco have been targeted using similar vishing tactics.