Hackers Steal Information on Gun Owners from Online Market in the US

Hackers compromised a website used to sell and buy firearms in the United States and managed to steal sensitive information on users' identities, according to TechCrunch.

Websites and online services that act as intermediaries for sellers and buyers always deal with sensitive information. If the website also deals with guns, it's clear why hackers would target it specifically.

A security researcher who chose to remain anonymous discovered an unsecured database containing users' full names, addresses, email addresses, passwords stored in plain text, and even phone numbers. According to TechCrunch, the researcher quickly identified the data, which was held on a server by the hackers.

TechCrunch also followed up the investigation by contacting some of the people found in the database and confirmed that at least some of them have been affected by the data breach.

"I can confirm that we were recently contacted by the FBI regarding the possibility of a data breach that has affected our company," GunAuction.com CEO Manny DelaCruz said in an email to TechCrunch.

"The breach likely exposed personal customer information like names, addresses, and email addresses. However, we want to reassure our customers that we have no reason to believe that any financial information was accessed during the breach. We are advising our customers to remain vigilant and monitor their financial accounts and credit reports for any suspicious activity," he added.

An interesting fact about the CEO's statement is that the company had to be informed of the data breach, which means they didn’t know their information had been stolen at some point in the past. The silver lining, however thin, is that the users' financial information was not part of the original data breach. Once the company understands who was affected, victims will be informed that their information got into the hands of the hackers.