Notes

Hackers Steal Millions Of Minecraft Passwords

Hackers take millions of Minecraft passwords



29 April 2016



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



Lifeboat members are able to run servers to build custom maps for Minecraft's smartphone version.



Evidence suggests that stolen data such as email addresses and passwords is being offered by sites that trade in hacked files.



Analysis suggests passwords were very weakly secured, allowing attackers to easily work them out.



Minimise damage



The information about the breach was given to an independent security expert Troy Hunt who said he got the list from someone who deals in stolen credentials. He was informed by a number of people that the information was being distributed via dark web sites.



Hunt claimed that the data was stolen in 2016 but the breach is only now being discovered.



Passwords for Lifeboat accounts were hashed, he said, but the algorithm used provided little protection.



Hashing is a technique that encrypts passwords to make it difficult to read in case the password is lost.



In most cases, he said, a Google search for a password hashed will immediately return the exact plain text value. He suggested that well-known cracking tools could automate this process and speed it up.



He said that "a large percentage of these passwords will have to be reverted into plain text in a short amount of time" in a blog post on the breach.



This often lead to other security issues the expert said, as many people reuse passwords, so the discovery of one password can lead attackers to compromise accounts on other websites.



In a statement to Motherboard, Lifeboat said it took steps to limit the damage.



"When this happened [in] January, we decided that the best option for our user was to force them to reset password, without notifying hackers that they had limited action time," it said to the news site, noting that it has now adopted stronger hashing algorithms.
Minecraft Servers


It stated: "We have not received any reports of anyone being hurt due to this."



Mr. Hunt was critical about the company's "quietly" making the password reset. He claimed that this policy made him "speechless".



He said that Lifeboat should have done more to notify users so that they could swiftly modify passwords if they were used on other websites.



"The first thing that a company should think about after an incident like this, is "How can we minimize the impact on our customers?" He said.



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