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I've always thought of it a bit like baseball cards; a kid has a card of this one player that another kid is keen on, and that kid has a card the first one wants so they make a trade. They both have a bunch of cards they've collected over time and by virtue of existing in the same social circles, trades are frequent, and cards flow back and forth on a regular basis. That's the analogy I often use to describe the data breach "personal stash" ecosystem, but with one key difference: if you trade a baseball card then you no longer have the original card, but if you trade a data breach which is merely a digital file, it replicates.

There are personal stashes of data breaches all over the place and they're usually presented like this one:

You'll recognise many of those names because they're noteworthy incidents that received a bunch of press. My Space. Adobe. LinkedIn. Ashley Madison.

The same incidents appear here:

And so on and so forth. Stashes of breaches like this are all over the place and they fuel an exchange ecosystem that replicates billions of records of personal data over and over again. Your data. My data. The data of a significant portion of the global internet-using population, just freely flowing backwards and forwards not just in the shady corners of "the dark web" but traded out there in the clear on mainstream websites. Until inevitably:

Diogo Santos Coelho was 14 when he started RaidForums, and was 21 by the time he was arrested for running the service 2 years ago. A kid, exchanging data without the maturity to understand the consequences of his actions. RaidForums left a void that was quickly filled by BreachForums:

Conor Fitzpatrick was 20 years old when he was finally picked up for running the service last year. Still just a kid, at least in the colloquial fashion in which we refer to youngsters as when we get a bit older, but surely still legally a minor when he chose to begin collecting data breaches.

Websites like these are taken down for a simple reason:

The ecosystem of personal stashes exchanged with other parties fuels crime.

For example, data breaches seed services set up with the express intent of monetising a broad range of personal attributes to the detriment of people who are already victims of a breach. Call them shady versions of Have I Been Pwned if you will, and this talk I gave at AusCERT a couple of years ago is a great explainer (deep-linked to the start of that segment):

The first service I spoke about in that segment was We Leak Info and it was run by two 22 year old guys. The website first appeared 3 years earlier - only a year after the creators had left childhood - and it allowed anyone with the money to access anyone else's personal data including:

names, email addresses, usernames, phone numbers, and passwords

One of the duo was later sentenced to 2 years in prison for his role, and when you read the sorts of conversations they were having, you can't help but think they behaved exactly like you'd expect a couple of young guys who thought they were anonymous would:

In the video, I mentioned Jordan Bloom in relation to LeakedSource, a veritable older gentleman of this class of crime being 24 when the site first appeared. He eventually pled guilty to charges that included trafficking identity information and when you read what that involved, you can see why this would attract the ire of law enforcement agencies:

However, unlike other breach notification services, such as Have I Been Pwned, LeakedSource also gave subscribers access to usernames, passwords (including in clear text), email addresses and IP addresses. LeakedSource services were often advertised on hacking forums and there was suspicion that its operators were actively looking to hack organizations whose data they could add to their database.

In 2016, a well-wisher purchased my own data from LeakedSource and sent over a dozen different records similar to this one:

Not mentioned in my talk but running in the same era was Leakbase, yet another service that collated huge volumes of sensitive data and sold it to absolutely anyone:

And just like all the other ones, the same data appeared over and over again:

It went dark at the end of 2017 amidst speculation the disappearance was tied to the takedown of the Hansa dark web market. If that was the case, why did we never hear of charges being laid as we did with We Leak Info and LeakedSource? Could it be that the operator of Leakbase was only ever so slightly younger than the other guys mentioned above and not having yet reached adulthood, managed to dodge charges? It would certainly be consistent with the demographic pattern of those with personal stashes of data breaches.

Speaking of patterns: We Leak Info, LeakedSource, Leakbase - it's like there's a theme of shady services attached to the word. As I say in the video, there's also a theme of attempting to remain anonymous (which clearly hasn't worked very well!), and a theme of attempting to eschew legal responsibility for how the data is used by merely putting words in the terms of service. For example, here's Jordan's go at deflecting his role in the ecosystem and yes, this was the entire terms of service:

I particularly like this clause:

You may only use this tool for your own personal security and data research. You may only search information about yourself, or those you are authorized in writing to do so.

That's not going to keep you out of trouble! Time and time again, I see this sort of wording on services used as if it's going to make a difference when the law comes asking hard questions; "Hey we literally told people to play nice with the data!"

We Leak Info used similar entertaining wording with some of the highlights including:

1. We Leak Info strictly prohibits the use of its Services to cause damage or harm to others
2. You may not use Our Services in acts deemed illegal by the laws in Your region
3. We Leak Info does not knowingly participate in the act of obtaining or distributing Data
4. We Leak Info will cooperate with any legal investigations that it determines worthy and valid at its own discretion

That last one in particular is an absolute zinger! But again, remember, we're talking about guys who stood this service up as teenagers and literally worked on the assumption of "as [l]ong as we cooperate they [the FBI] won't fuck with us" 🤦‍♂️ The ignorance of that attitude whilst advertising services on criminal forums is just mind-blowing, even for kids.

All of which brings me to the inspiration for this blog post:

Interesting find by @MayhemDayOne, wonder if it was from a shady breach search service (we’ve seen a bunch shut down over the years)? Either way, collecting and storing this data is now trivial so not a big surprise to see someone screw up their permissions and (re)leak it all. https://t.co/DM7udeUcRk

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) January 22, 2024

It's like I've seen it all before! No, really, because only a couple of days later someone running a service popped up and claimed responsibility for having exposed the data due to "a firewall misconfiguration". I'm not going to name or link the service, but I will describe a few key features:

1. After purchasing access, it returns extensive personal information exposed in data breaches including names, email addresses, usernames, phone numbers, and passwords
2. The operator is clearly trying to remain anonymous with no discoverable information about who is running it
3. It has ToS that include: "You may only use this service for your own personal security and research. Furthermore, you may only search for information about yourself or those who you are authorized in writing to do so." (I know what you're thinking, so I diff'd it for you)
4. The name of the service starts with the word "leak"

I could write predictions about the future of this service but if you've read this far and paid attention to the precedents, you can reliably form your own conclusion. The outcome is easily predictable and indeed it was the predictability of the whole situation when I started getting bombarded with queries about the "Mother of all Breaches" that frustrated me; of course it was someone's personal stash, because we've seen it all before and we live in an era where it's dead easy to build services like this. Cloud is ubiquitous and storage is cheap, you can stand up great looking websites in next to no time courtesy of freely available templates, and the whole data breach trading ecosystem I referred to earlier can easily seed services like this.

Maybe the young guy running this service (assuming the previously observed patterns apply) will learn from history and quietly exit while the getting is good, I don't know, time will tell. At the very least, if he reads this and takes nothing else away, don't go driving around in a bright green Lamborghini!