A database containing information on more than 20 million users of an online dating has reportedly been stolen by a hacker.
It is unclear at this time whether the information has been publicly exposed, but someone using the online alias “Mastermind” claims to have it, according to a post on an unknown website.
The person claims the data is 100% authentic, and Daniel Ingevaldson, Chief Technology Officer at Easy Solutions, said in a blog post on Sunday that the list included email addresses from Hotmail, Yahoo , and Gmail.
Easy Solutions is a US-based company that provides security products for detecting and preventing cyber fraud across various computing platforms.
According to Ingevaldson, the list contains over 7 million credentials from Hotmail, 2.5 million from Yahoo, and 2.2 million from Gmail.com.
It is unclear whether the "credentials" refer to usernames and passwords that could be used to access email accounts or the dating site account. It is also unknown whether the database had the passwords stored in plain text.
An email address is often used as a username for an online service, to which the user can log in with a unique password. However, password recycling is a common practice for many users, and the same password could be used to log in to multiple online accounts.
“The list appears to be international in nature with hundreds of domains listed from all over the world. Hackers and fraudsters are likely to use the stolen credentials to commit fraud not on the original hacked website, but to use them to exploit the password to gain access to other services, including banks and travel and email providers,” says Ingevaldson.
It is believed, according to sources at softpedia.com, that the affected website is Topface, an online dating site that reportedly has over 90 million users. The company is based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and advertises that more than 50% of its users are outside the country.
Topface CEO Dmitry Filatov said that there is currently no evidence of a security breach on their service.
