A hacker has leaked the database of Daniel's Hosting (DH), the largest free web hosting provider for dark web. The leaked data was spotted online after a hacker breached Daniel's Hosting in March. At the time, DH owner Daniel Winzen told ZDNet that the hacker breached portal , stole his database, and then gained access to all of his servers. About two weeks after the breach, DH shut down its service, urging users to move their sites to new dark web hosting providers. More than 7,000 sites, or about a third of all dark web portals, went down after DH was shut down.
The breach resulted in sensitive and confidential data being leaked online . Specifically, a hacker named KingNull uploaded a copy of the stolen DH database to a file hosting portal and informed ZDNet about the incident. It is estimated that the leaked data includes about 4,000 email addresses , over 7,000 user account passwords, and about 9,000 private keys for .onion (dark web) domains . As the company Under the Breach told ZDNet, the leaked data can be used to connect the owners of the leaked email addresses to certain dark web portals. It also added that this information could essentially help law enforcement agencies track and identify people involved in illegal activities on these darknet sites . Additionally, if the website owners moved their dark web portals to new hosting providers but continued to use the old password, hackers could also breach their new accounts using the leaked passwords. Furthermore, the leaked data could put the owners of dissident and political websites at risk, as their identities could be exposed by repressive regimes, which could have serious consequences if these users have not taken the necessary steps to protect their identities. IP addresses, which could help law enforcement in some investigations, were not included in the dumped data.
It’s worth noting at this point that this is not the first time DH has been targeted by hackers. The March 2020 hack was the second time DH has suffered a security breach. The site was also compromised in November 2018, when a hacker breached the site’s backend database server and deleted all of its sites. More than 6,500 sites were deleted at that time, but no data was leaked. However, DH is not the only major dark web hosting provider to have been compromised. In 2017, the same anonymous group of hackers “hit” Freedom Hosting IIafter discovering that the hosting provider was connecting to child abuse portals.
After the March 2020 hack, Winzen told ZDNet that he plans to bring the service back online after several months, but only after several improvements.
