The Right-Wing Data Breach Keeps Widening

The data breach at web hosting company Epik, which infamously tried to keep internet cesspool 8Chan afloat after the Christchurch shooter posted his manifesto there, keeps getting worse, with a second round of leaks to the public being announced:

BREAKING: hacktivists with Anonymous release a second round of data from the Epik hack. A security researcher who was able to verify the extent of the leak to me described it as "a complete own." At over 300 gigabytes worth of data, this leak is larger than the first.

— steven monacelli  (@stevanzetti) September 29, 2021

Three hundred gigabytes of data released, including passwords, addresses, names, and even credit card numbers associated with right-wing operators and organizations. Entire disk images have been obtained: 

“Files are one thing, but a virtual machine disk image allows you to boot up the company’s entire server on your own, We usually see breaches with database dumps, documents, configuration files, etc. In this case, we are talking about the entire server image, with all the programs and files required to host the application it is serving.” 

This pretty much lays bare huge swathes of the online right-wing presence, exposing connections between organizers and the astroturf groups they funnel money to. This series of data breaches will be paying dividends to extremism researchers for years to come. Nothing like a proverbial solar flare to illuminate dark money!