The Hacker News — Cyber Security, Hacking, Technology News

Another day, another Data Breach! Now, Russia's biggest social networking site VK.com is the latest in the line of historical data breaches targeting social networking websites.

The same hacker who previously sold data dumps from MySpace, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Fling.com, is now selling more than 100 Million VK.com records for just 1 Bitcoin (approx. US$580).

The database contains information like full names (first names and last names), email addresses, plain-text passwords, location information, phone numbers and, in some cases, secondary email addresses.

Yes, plain-text passwords. According to Peace, the passwords were already in plain text when the VK.com was hacked. So, if the site still stores passwords in cleartext today, this could be a real security risk for its users.

The data breach has initially been reported by LeakedSource search engine, which received portions of the database from one of the people who bought it.

The company has already analyzed the contents of the data dump and has added it to its service. So, you can use its search engine to check if you were compromised.

Russia’s Facebook VK.com is said to be the largest social networking site in Europe with more than 350 Million users. So, the hack is believed to be the biggest hack the site has ever experienced.

The validity of the credentials exposed in the hack is thought to have been stolen in late-2012 or early 2013 when VK.com had just under 190 Million users.

All the LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tumblr data breaches are also believed to have taken place during the same duration, between 2012 and 2013, when many websites were not practicing appropriate Web security policies, like hashing and salting passwords.
The hacker, named Peace (or Peace_of_mind), is selling the dataset -- which is over 17 gigabytes in size -- on The Real Deal dark web marketplace for a mere 1 Bitcoin.

According to LeakedSource, the most common password used by VK.com users was "123456," followed by "qwerty" and "123123," which are incredibly easy to predict. Also, the vast majority of email addresses came from mail.ru.

Like other data breaches, I strongly suggest you change your password immediately, especially if you use the same password for other websites.

Is Google or Facebook evil? Forget it!

Russian nerds have developed a new Face Recognition technology based app called FindFace, which is a nightmare for privacy lovers and human right advocates.

FindFace is a terrifyingly powerful facial recognition app that lets you photograph strangers in a crowd and find their real identity by connecting them to their social media accounts with 70% success rate, putting public anonymity at risk.

The FindFace app was launched two months ago on Google Play and Apple’s App Store and currently has 500,000 registered users and processed nearly 3 Million searches, according to its co-founders, 26-year-old Artem Kukharenko, and 29-year-old Alexander Kabakov.

According to The Guardian, FindFace uses image recognition technology to compare faces against profile pictures on Vkontakte, a very popular social networking site in Russia that has over 200 Million users.

Besides showing the social media account of the one you are searching for, FindFace also shows you social media accounts of people who look very much like the person in the photograph.

"It also looks for similar people," Kabakov told The Guardian. "So you could just upload a photo of a movie star you like or your ex, and then find ten girls who look similar to her and send them messages."

Although many people may find the app useful, possibly girls who do not want pervs to contact them and harass them would definitely find this app as a stalking tool.

FindFace has marketed itself as a dating app, but its founders hope to make big money from licensing its algorithm to retail companies and law enforcement, claiming their algorithm can search through a Billion photographs in a matter of seconds on a normal computer.

They said that Russian police had already contacted them about using their facial recognition technology.

Just after the launch of this app, Security firm Kaspersky also tested the FindFace's algorithm in April and found that the app works as accurate as it claims to.

When the security company uploaded posed photographs, the app correctly identified people 90 percent of the time, although when it uploaded photos taken sneakily in public, accuracy decreased.

Are you finding the whole thing a bit scary?

This is the entirely new world of technology and gadgets where nothing is hidden; nobody is anonymous.

So, the app leaves just two option for you: Either wear something on your face to trick the camera, like wearing a hoodie, mask, glasses, while roaming on a street, or you better get used to having no privacy in your new society.

Kaspersky also advised Vkontakte users to make their pictures private and delete old photos from the profile pictures album, if they do not want to be identified by strangers.

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