The crowdfunding site Patreon was hacked this week as the email addresses, usernames and shipping addresses of millions of the website’s users were compromised. Patreon announced earlier this week that the personal information of roughly 2.3 million of its users had been revealed.
The information was made freely available so that anyone could download it.
The hackers have identified themselves in a readme file as the #SuperExtremeShitpostingTeam.
They have not expressed any sort of motive for the hack, except for the fact they were “doing it for the lulz”. This common internet expression means that they orchestrated the attack simply for their own amusement.
Patreon CEO Jack Conte has insisted that he is taking the situation very seriously, and he promises a very thorough investigation into the matter.
Conte wrote, “Patreon engineering has done a thorough analysis of the vulnerability that led to the breach. We are being meticulous and rigorous in the investigation, and based on conversations with dozens of advisors and security experts, I’m highly confident that we’re doing everything in our power to minimize the impact on our users.”
Users of Patreon have been recommended to change their email passwords as soon as possible in order to avoid having their personal information stolen.
Reports have stated that nearly 15 gigabytes of personal data had been posted. Security researchers are still looking into the situation in order to see what else they are able to uncover about the attack.
Patreon was founded in May of 2013 in San Francisco by musician Jack Conte and platform developer Sam Yam. The website allows artists to obtain funding from donors on either a recurring basis or per individual artworks. The website is particularly popular with users of YouTube.
The website has been featured in Forbes, Time, and Billboard magazines.
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