[BreachExchange] US Right-Wing Platform Gab Acknowledges it Was Hacked

[Destry Winant]

https://www.securityweek.com/us-right-wing-platform-gab-acknowledges-it-was-hacked

The CEO of Gab, a social network favored by the US political right,
said the platform had been attacked by "demon hackers" after an
activist group released user data described as an important resource
for research on the far right.

The activist group called DDoSecrets Collective released the data over
the weekend to Wired magazine, claiming it offered "a record of the
culture" related to the violent siege of the US Capitol on January 6.

The data included passwords and private messages on thousands of accounts.

Gab chief executive Andrew Torba claimed in a Twitter message Sunday
that "demon hackers (I'm very serious) are attacking Gab right now,"
also calling members of the group "mentally ill" and using a slur to
refer to them as members of the trans community.

"The same people behind this attack targeted law enforcement officers
and their families last summer," Torba wrote, adding that the company
was working with authorities to investigate.

The activist group denied Torba's allegations and said it would
release the data to researchers and journalists.

"Our view is that data is a resource and a record," the collective
said in a blog post.

A member of the collective told Wired that the data was a "gold mine
of research for people looking at militias, neo-Nazis, the far right,
QAnon, and everything surrounding January 6."

The group's website said the data was "an important sociological
resource" and "a record of the culture and the exact statements
surrounding not only an increase in extremist views and actions, but
an attempted coup."

Gab is one of several platforms which have attracted large numbers of
conservatives by steering clear of the moderation efforts imposed by
Facebook and Twitter, which banned former president Donald Trump and
some of his supporters for inciting violence.