Discord Suffers Major Hack Making Users’ Worst Nightmare Come True

A third-party company that works with Discord has been breached which has shined a light on one of the biggest concerns users have right now. In the digital age, information is kept behind virtual locks and keys. It’s meant to be harder to access than physical information and generally more convenient for those storing the data, but any kind of successful hack or breach can be extremely dangerous. Personal information can be sold, used to blackmail someone, and it can be difficult to catch the people responsible for it. However, we’re also approaching an age where world governments are trying to police the internet in various ways.

Over the last few years, governments have been pushing to make users verify their identities and ages to access certain parts of the internet. In the United States, this is most prevalent with pornography websites to stop minors from using them and to track those who may upload illegal content. In the UK, proving your identity is starting to become a must for video games, apps like Discord, and more. It’s an extremely controversial move as it removes anonymity from the internet and causes concerns about what could be done with that information.

Discord Partner Gets Hacked, Revealing Huge Flaw in Users Verifying Their Identities

Unfortunately, a lot of the concerns were validated. Discord recently confirmed that one of its third-party vendors, identified as Zendesk by The Verge, had been breached. This led to selfies and identifying documents, such as driver’s licenses, being stolen along with approximate locations of users, real names, emails, and more. In the UK, Discord has users upload a selfie with their ID to verify their identity. Discord told The Verge that at least 70,000 people were impacted by this breach, and it was working with the users directly and the authorities to keep them safe.

According to 404 Media, the hackers are trying to use the data to extort Discord, though the social media platform claims it won’t be bending the knee to them. The hackers have shared some of the leaked selfies of users posing with their ID in a Telegram group and created a spreadsheet with detailed information on a thousand different users.

All of this has only validated users who have vocally criticized the idea of handing over such sensitive data to a company. These companies can be breached at any time, and it’s hard to get the genie back in the bottle once things like this start to leak out. Whether any changes will be made in the wake of this remains to be seen. It was reported that GTA Online users may have to verify their age to play soon, but it has yet to be officially implemented into the game. It is just one of many major products that could be impacted by this law.

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