42 million email addresses stolen on dating sites

The Australian publisher of dating sites Cupid Media leaked data from its 42 million users , says security expert Brian Krebs, Wednesday, Nov. 20 . Cupid Media operates a treintane dating sites " niche " , by country, religion, ethnicity or interests. Data discovered by Krebs Birna early November , would come from a security breach identified by Cupid Media in January.
Few data seem to have escaped the collection : user name , email address, password "in the clear " (without protection) and anniversary date. Anyone with these data could identify sites instead of the user. If the person uses the same password for his e-mails , they are also accessible.

SOME USERS WARNED

" In January , we detected suspicious activity on our network, and from the information we had, we made decisions that seemed most appropriate by contacting affected customers and changing the passwords of a group particular user , "said Andrew Bolton, executive director of the company Mr. Krebs. According to the company , a " large part " of the 42 million accounts listed are old , inactive or deleted. Officially Cupid Media has 30 million customers, that would be the only alerted.

The editor says dating sites have hired an outside expert and reviewed the safety of its services. To a specialist, examined by Mr. Krebs, 42 million email addresses collected from Cupid Media would be a gold mine for spammers . Members of these sites would be more sensitive than the average to spam for pharmaceuticals ( viagra, slimming pill ... ) or other dating services .

In recent years, particularly in recent months , many companies have seen hackers access their databases containing data of their users. IDs stolen from Cupid Media have also been found on a server that has already hosted those acquired from the publisher Adobe software on PR Newswire and in an organism fight against economic crime and electronics ( NW3C ) in October . Adobe giant had thus "lost" in August 130 million encrypted passwords of its users. In March , it was taking service Evernote notes that would reset the passwords of its 50 million users ...