AlphaBay Dark Web Marketplace Hacked; Exposes Over 200,000 Private Messages
Jan 25, 2017
AlphaBay, possibly the largest active dark web marketplace at the moment, has paid a hacker after he successfully exploited vulnerabilities in the internal mailing system of the website and hijacked over 200,000 private unencrypted messages from several users. The hacker, using the pseudonym Cipher0007, disclosed two "high-risk bugs" two days ago on Reddit that allowed him to gain access to troves of private messages belonging to buyers and sellers on the dark website, AlphaBay admins announced on Tuesday. It turns out that the messages were not encrypted by default, which gave the hacker ability to view all messages between vendors and buyers selling and purchasing everything from illicit drugs to exploits, malware, and stolen data. Over 218,000 Private Messages of Anonymous Dealers Exposed To prove he had successfully compromised the AlphaBay website, the hacker posted five screenshots of random user private conversations, showing that AlphaBay users had op...