Pierluigi Paganini July 26, 2016

O2 customer data that was reportedly first stolen from the gaming site XSplit in November 2013 are now offered for sale on the Dark Web.

In the dark web it is possible to find any kind of illegal product and services, from weapons to payment card data, last disconcerting discovery is related to the availability of O2 customer data in the dark web.

According to the Victoria Derbyshire programme the data are offered for sale, it seems that belong to the trove of information stolen from the gaming website XSplit three years ago. The data include login credentials, phone numbers, emails, and dates of birth.

The O2 customers that shared the same credentials with the gaming website are potentially exposed to the hackers that could access their data. Unfortunately, this is a bad habit that allows hackers to take over all the accounts of the victims that share the same credentials. You have also to consider that there are software that automate the process of testing dump of stolen data against multiple online web services, including Twitter and Facebook, stolen credentials, the Shard tool is one of them.

The O2 company has already alerted the law enforcement and it is supporting investigations.

“Credential stuffing is a challenge for many businesses. We have reported all the details passed to us about the seller to law enforcement and we continue to help with their investigations. ” states the official statement issued by O2. “We act immediately if we are given evidence of personal credentials being taken from the internet and used to try and compromise a customer’s account.”

The news was also reported by the BBC that with the support of an ethical hacker purchased a set of O2 customer data to investigate the case.

“It was shown to the BBC by an ethical hacker, who found the information listed for sale on a dark net market. The dark net is a part of the internet that is only visible to people using specialist web browsers, and is often used for illegal activity.” reported the BBC. “BBC reporters purchased a small sample of customer details from the seller to investigate further and contacted O2. Together, the investigating teams believed it was the result of credential stuffing.”

O2 customer data sold on dark net (Source BBC)

The BBC cites Hasnain Shaw that was one of the people whose details the media broadcaster obtained, his data had already been abused to access more accounts registered on other web services. He confirmed to have shared the same credentials with O2.

“I was away from home when eBay contacted me to say there was some suspicious activity on my account. I checked and it looked like there were cars for sale on my account.” Shaw said. “Four weeks ago, I got a similar email from Gumtree. It looked like the same people had got access to that account because it was the same cars being advertised.”

As usual, let me suggest using strong passwords, a different password for each web service and enable two-factor authentication when available.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Dark Web, O2 customer data)