Epic hack: The Anonymous leaked customer data of the company, resulting in the disclosure details about the Proud Boys team and other far-right groups.
The web hosting company Epik has been a long time a haven for individuals and organisations that espouse various conspiracy theories and far-right views. For example, the company provides services to conspiracy theorists QAnon, the far-right organisation The Proud Boys and other instigators of the 6from January at the US Capitol. The service allows them to share their extremist content while maintaining their anonymity.
Learn more: Epik hacked: Anonymous stole data from the web hosting "bunker" of the far-right
This, however, seems to be no longer the case after the hack of Epik by the hackctivist group Anonymous. Anonymous hacked into the company's systems and published a huge amount of data that were stored in them. The data includes, among other things, usernames, passwords and other data identification of Epik customers (and not only customers).
Researchers involved in tracking extremist groups, such as the Proud Boys, thought that the Epik data leak from Anonymous would be very useful, since they can learn information about the people behind these groups and their actions. The first revelations have been spreading on Twitter since news of the Epik hack broke, but those studying the material say it will take months, maybe even years, to dig through all that data.
“It's huge. It may be the biggest domain-style leak I've seen and, as an extremism researcher, it's certainly the most interesting leak", said the Megan Squire, professor of computer science at Elon University.
Epik has become more popular precisely because it offers internet services to sites that violate the policies of other companies, promoting hate speech, misinformation and violence. Its client list consists of organisations and sites that have been removed by other well-known companies due to their extremist content.
Some of Epik's best known customers have been the 8chan, Gab and Parler.
In addition, Epik provides services to a network of websites dedicated to the extremist conspiracy theory QAnon. Epik briefly hosted the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer in 2019, but soon cancelled that contract, according to reports. Epik also reported that stopped supporting 8chan after a short period of time.
See also: Twitter: deleted over 70,000 accounts linked to Qanon
A few days after the hack was disclosed by Anonymous, Epik's founder said the company was facing a cybersecurity incident and asked customers to report any unusual activity.
The records include time data, internal company emails and customer account credentials, revealing who runs some of the biggest far-right sites. The data include customer names, home addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and passwords. The hack by Anonymous even revealed the personal records from Anonymize, a privacy service offered by Epik to customers who want to conceal their identity.
The researchers say the most critical findings in this leak relate to the the identity of individuals associated with various extremist sites (the Proud Boys and others) and the key role Epik played in the preservation of online material, which would otherwise have disappeared from the Internet.
“Without Epik, many extremist communities-from the QAnon and white nationalists to neo-Nazis-would have much less oxygen to spread evil, whether it came from the Capitol attack or from the disinformation and conspiracy theories that abolished democracy..", said the Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which studies extremism on the internet.
Last week, when Anonymous announced the Epik hack, they said it would help researchers identify the ownership and management of "of the worst garbage the Internet has to offer“.
Initially, the company had said it had not found a breach, but later the founder admitted that there had been a data theft and urged people not to use the data for "negative" purposes.
Many domains in the Epik data leak are associated with the far-right group Proud Boys, which is known for street fights and involvement in the Capitol attack. The group was removed from Facebook in 2018 as a hate group.
Learn more: Security officials to Senate for invading Capitol: "It was a coordinated attack"
A Twitter account, @epikfailsnippet, which reported things about the leaked data, included a thread purporting to expose the administrators of Proud Boys group sites (not verified). A man who was thought to be an administrator of a local Proud Boys forum is said to have been a university employee although the university says he has not been employed there since November 2020.
Researchers try to carefully check the data so that what is revealed is reliable.
Source: adn.com
