A few days ago, Discord had revealed that one of its customer service providers had suffered a data breach. It had resulted in photos of government-ID photos being stolen by the attackers.
In its initial report, Discord had said that the hackers had gained access to "a small number" of government-ID images. However, an update to the statement says that about 70,000 photos of government-issued IDs were exposed. Sure, that's a small number.
VX Underground, which is known for its repository for malware samples for cybersecurity research, alleged that the Discord data breach was significantly larger. They claimed that attackers had targeted Zendesk, and compromised it, thus gaining access to 1.5TB of age verification related images. The total number was said to be 2.1 Million, more specifically, 2,185,151 images. This included driver licenses, passports, and may also have included an unknown number of email addresses. More importantly, the report claimed that Discord was being extorted by the attackers.
Discord has denied the data breach was so large. In a statement sent by spokesperson Nu Wexler to The Verge, Discord said that inaccurate claims are being circulated online. The company says approximately 70,000 users may have had their government-ID photos exposed. Discord also said that it would not reward those responsible for their illegal actions, meaning it would not pay the ransom.
Discord says all users who were impacted by the data breach have been notified of the attack, and that it is still investigating the matter with the help of law enforcement, security experts, and data protection authorities.
This security mishap has highlighted that age verification laws such as the U.K.'s Online Safety Act could not only pose privacy risks, but also expose user data to hacks. It only took a couple of months for hackers to gain access to a database containing images of personal identification documents, which was never supposed to exist in the first place. Discord had claimed that its support services would verify the age of users and immediately delete them, which, if it were true, would not have led to such an incident.
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