Notes

Hackers Steal Millions Of Minecraft Passwords

Hackers take millions of Minecraft passwords



29 April 2016



Hackers have gained access to login information for more seven million Minecraft users on the site Lifeboat.



Lifeboat lets members run servers with custom multiplayer maps for the smartphone version of Minecraft.



There is evidence that stolen information, which includes passwords and email addresses, is being sold on websites which sell hacked data.



Analysis suggests passwords were very vulnerable to attack, and attackers could easily work them out.



Minimise damage



The information regarding the breach was given to independent security expert Troy Hunt who said he obtained the list from a person who trades in stolen credentials. He was informed by a number of people that the data was being circulated on dark net websites.



Mr. Hunt said the data was stolen at the beginning of 2016 but the breach has only just come to light.



He stated that passwords for Lifeboat accounts had been hacked however the algorithm employed offered very little security.



Hashing is a technique used to scramble passwords so they aren't easily read if the data goes astray.



He also said that a Google search for a password that has been hashed would often give the correct plain text value. He said that well-known cracking tools could be able to automatize this process and speed it up.



He said that "a large portion of these passwords would need been converted to plain text in a very short period of time" in a blog post on the breach.



He said that this can lead to additional security issues as many people reuse passwords and attackers can figure out which password is being used to compromise accounts on other websites.



In a letter to Motherboard, Lifeboat said it had taken action to limit the damage.



"When this happened early January , we decided that the best way to protect our users was to quietly force a password reset without notifying the hackers that they had a limited time to take action," it told the news site adding that it was now using stronger hashing algorithms.



It stated that it did not have any reports of anyone being hurt as a result of this.



Mr Hunt was critical of the company's "quietly" making the password reset. He said that the policy had left him "speechless".



Instead, he said, Lifeboat should have done more to inform users to change their passwords if they were using the same one on other websites.



"The first thing to be on the mind of every company after an incident like this is'How can we minimise the damage to our users?'" He said.



Minecraft transforms virtual reality into a reality



28 April 2016



Beautiful People data available online



26 April 2016



An estate agent is looking for Minecraft builders



30 March 2016



Minecraft to help AI



14 March 2016

Bitrix.la
My Website: https://bitrix.la/