An attacker leaked non-public information from GETTR, a social media platform
made by former president Donald Trump's team in July 2021. The data was stored
in two attempts, first on 1st July and 2nd on 5th July, the data was later
leaked on a publicly accessible hacking forum called RAID. It is a forum where
one can download hacking data free of cost.
As per the leaked file copies and
hacker's claims, the first batch of hacked data was retrieved via scraping the
website, whereas the second batch (the heavier leak) was stolen by exploiting
compromised GETTR API endpoints. The Record analyzed these samples which
contained data like user names, address, profile info, website user IDs, and
other public information. Besides this, the leak also contained non public info
like user email IDs, date of birth, and location data.
The dumped data contained
authentic information, confirm cybersecurity experts. GETTR didn't respond to
any requests sent to its website for giving comment about the hack. All in all,
90,065 users' data was included in the dump posted on RAID this Monday, i.e July
5. The API leak news comes following the website's bumpy launch. On 4th July, an
attacker hacked into the GETTR website and seized multipl high profile
Republican accounts, which include Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, former
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Jason Miller, the former Trump spokesperson
Gettr’s founder, and former Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon. Bumpy site launch
are a common thing, similar incidents have happened in the past which impacted
other organisations before, particularly right wing affiliations in the US
political diaspora.
Another pro-Trump social media platform, Gab, recently
suffered a similar attack in March this year, the attack had exposed data of its
members. The Wrap reports "the hacked profiles were all changed to include the
message “@JubaBaghad was here :)”; some of the accounts also included the phrase
“free Palestine.” The accounts were hacked around 8:30 a.m. ET on Sunday,
according to Insider, before being restored around 10:00 a.m. ET. Miller,
meanwhile, told the outlet the hack was merely a sign Gettr was onto something
big."
