Are you an enjoyer of a 4Chan GIF or two? Bad news may be coming your way – a 4chan hack may have taken place.
Preface
Many of the readers of the BreachDirectory blog will have heard about 4chan – an image-based bulletin forum popular as a hub related to Internet subculture where users can post just about anything anonymously, or, as one Reddit user puts it, it‘s a place „where smart people pretend to be stupid.“ One way or another, 4chan is a bulletin board forum famous for its discussions and also its 4chan gif images.
No more 4chan GIFs? 4Chan Hack Suspected
Since the early morning of April 15th, it has been impossible to access 4chan and view famous 4chan gif images and so much more. According to sources online, some security experts believe that the outage of 4chan gifs and of 4chan as a whole may be linked to a „comprehensive hack.“
According to DownDetector, 4chan.org has been down since the early hours of April 15th. It doesn‘t take long to figure out why – Reddit is already glaring with messages regarding the fact that the famous 4chan gif forum may have been hacked:
The Reddit thread leads to a set of images on imgur: the image shows that a hacker has accessed the internal database of the 4chan gif board indicating that 4chan has indeed been hacked:
The hacker of the 4chan gif website has also leaked the email addresses of all of the moderators of the service.
What Now?
Well, crap. If you‘ve ever used 4chan gif in the past, it is a great idea to change your password and be on the lookout for suspicious login attempts, and if you didn‘t, make use of data breach search engines like BreachDirectory.com to make sure that your account is not in danger of identity theft.
It is also a good idea to register for data breach notifications as then you will be notified when and where your account gets exposed in a data breach by email too.
How Did 4chan Gif Get Hacked?
The source of the 4chan hack remains unclear. It may have been related to a simple security misconfiguration, SQL injection, Cross-Site Scripting, CSRF, improper input validation, or other attack vectors, but only time can tell for certain.
The scale of the 4chan hack, at this time, also remains unclear – as visible from imgur images shared by the hacker, he or she has access to the entire MySQL database belonging to 4chan, so it‘s safe to say that everything in 4chan, including 4chan gif and other messages shared on the bulletin board, is compromised.
How to Protect Yourself?
To protect yourself, make good use of data breach search engines and make sure to register for data breach notifications using BreachDirectory.com as BreachDirectory will not only inform you whether your data has been stolen but also advise you on where and how it got into the hands of hackers as well as tell you what actions should you take to be on the safe side.
Summary
The popular 4chan gif sharing website – 4chan.org – suffered a data breach. It is still unclear what data was accessed by the hacker or who accessed its internal systems, however, images on imgur show that the hacker has access to its internal systems so it‘s safe that the entire infrastructure of 4chan is in danger.
FAQ Related to 4chan gif
Did 4chan Get Hacked?
Yes, that definitely seems to be the case. From threads on Reddit to images on imgur and beyond, it definitely seems like the 4chan gif website did get compromised.
How Did 4chan Gif Get Hacked?
It is still unclear how exactly did the hacker of the 4chan gif website accessed its systems. It may have to do with the exploiting of attacks like XSS, SQL injection, CSRF, input validation, social engineering, or other methods. We don‘t know for certain.
What Data Did the 4chan Gif Hacker Access?
Judging by the images shared on the image-sharing website imgur, it is safe to assume that the entire infrastructure of 4chan did get compromised.
How to Protect Myself From Identity Theft?
To protect yourself from identity theft, make use of data breach search engines such as the one available on BreachDirectory.com. BreachDirectory will tell you where and how your data got stolen as well as what data is at risk, and the BreachDirectory API will be useful for those wanting to implement data breach data into their own systems to further their own use case.