"Hackers Steal Gun Owners' Data from Firearm Auction Website"

A website that facilitates the purchase and sale of guns has been compromised by hackers, exposing the identity of its customers. The hack exposed sensitive personal information belonging to more than 550,000 users. The exposed data includes full names, home addresses, email addresses, unencrypted passwords, and phone numbers. The stolen data is said to enable the linking of specific individuals to the sale or purchase of a particular weapon. A security researcher found the server storing the data, which was determined to be used by a hacker behind the compromise of the gun auction website. There was no measure in place to limit or control access to the server, so the researcher easily downloaded and examined the data. They discovered data extracted from the website GunAuction[.]com, which since 1998 has allowed anyone to list guns for auction online. TechCrunch analyzed a sample of the stolen data and contacted 100 individuals via email and 60 individuals by phone. Ten people confirmed the accuracy of the data contained in the stolen database. However, it is unclear how current the data is, considering that 25 email addresses bounced and many phone numbers were disconnected. This article continues to discuss the compromise of a gun auction website.

TechCrunch reports "Hackers Steal Gun Owners' Data from Firearm Auction Website"