A decade-old data breach involving a Russian-language cybercrime forum has resurfaced, exposing millions of email addresses and login details, including credentials that members had reportedly shared about other victims.
Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) added the 2013 breach of YouHack to its database on Wednesday, recording 7.2 million unique email addresses. Around 107,000 belonged to forum members. The exposed information included usernames, IP addresses and mostly unsalted MD5 password hashes.
Unsalted MD5 is considered weak password protection because it allows attackers to test password guesses quickly. It also produces identical hashes when the same password is used, making password cracking easier.
Despite operating in the cybercrime space, YouHack members were not immune to poor security practices, including password reuse and the use of email addresses linked to their real identities. The forum moved to a different domain after the breach and remains active, providing a platform for trading stolen credentials and financial data.
The leaked information was later included in the 2024 “Mother of all Breaches”, a 12TB collection containing 26 billion records gathered from multiple data breaches.
Sberbank loyalty programme breach affected 48 million users
HIBP also reported details of a separate 2023 breach involving SberSpasibo, the loyalty programme of Russian bank Sberbank. The incident exposed records linked to 48 million users, including 3.3 million unique email addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.
Bank card numbers were stored as unsalted SHA-1 hashes, which could allow attackers to test possible card numbers against the leaked data.
Reports at the time indicated that the records dated from April 2017 to February 2022. The pro-Ukraine hacktivist group NLB claimed responsibility for the attack.
NLB also claimed responsibility for an attack on Sberbank’s internal systems during the same period. It later took partial credit for an attack on Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest private bank.
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