If you are reading this article in 2020, you don’t have to be worried about the AdultFriendFinder hack. This breach happened during 2015, yes it has happened, and over 412 million users were exposed. And today, we are going to explain to you why it is a good thing that this dating site got hacked, because thanks to the data breach, the security is now finally on point.
Do you want to sign up for free and get a premium membership for $0? Read this post.
About the adult friend finder data breach in 2015
Back in 2015, one of the biggest internet adult dating sites was hacked, and over 412 million users from company Friend Finder Network were exposed to this hack. Out of which, at least 339 million users where from website adultfriendfinder.com, which is, in our opinion, the top 3 most prominent online dating sites. The bizarre thing about this breach is that they were able to pull out from the database over 15 million accounts, which were supposed to be deleted, but they were not purged out of the FFN database.
There were few other sites, which got hit by this hack. The most amount of damage got cams.com and penthouse.com, where they stoled millions and millions of user data again.
Five years after the hack
It is said that it is five years later, and we still have no idea who has hacked the network. But truth to be told, we have no idea how many investigations were even done since this story disappeared from the news quite quickly. At first, there was a massive outrage by every user. But then they have found out that data about their preferences etc. was not in the database. So most of the users stop caring about this issue.
Why it is good that aff.com got hacked
We know that this sounds almost crazy. But truth to be told, the 2015 hack was probably the best thing for the privacy for users of aff in 2020 and beyond.
Yes, five years ago, they went almost bankrupt thanks to this hack. The good thing about all of this is that back in 2015, they have made their databases so secure, that most databases even now in 2020 are not as secured as this site was back then. And can you imagine how much they have improved since then?
It is hard to imagine that most companies do not care about security. But it is the truth. Most companies or websites do not care at all about the security of their database. And they continue not caring only until something terrible happens, like this hack, for example. And usually, these sorts of companies who went through hack or data breach become quickly one of the most secure websites in the industry. We strongly believe that the same has happened with adult friend finder.
“Deleted” accounts
Another great thing about the hack of adult friend finder was that the public finds out that they genuinely do not delete the accounts, as they were supposed to. Which again was a horrible thing back then. But that is fantastic news for new users. They can’t make the same mistakes now. If they did, it would put them out of business for good. If there were a bet, it would be an easy all in to choose, that they are deleting all of the accounts now and that their database is one of the most hack-proof databases in the whole online dating industry.
Btw: If you would like to get your account deleted and you have no idea how to read this tutorial.
Fun statistics from AFF hack
The three most used email domains were Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail. If the hack would have happened in 2020, there is a good chance that Gmail would be on the first spot instead of Hotmail. The funny part is, there were also several thousand users who have used .gov emails.
There was also released excel sheet somewhere, where they have shared that almost a million users had as their password “123456”. Even more, than half-million users used “12345,” as the only requirement for the password was to have at least five characters. And the statistic went on — thousands of users with horrible passwords. If they did not hack the database, they could have easily hack several million accounts with 20 different passwords.
So if you are thinking about joining this dating site, you have no reason to be scared of your data. The site is security is on another level. Even with that being said, if you do not use a secure password, all of that increased security is for nothing. So please, if you are unregistered or you are one of those users with a horrible password, please change it to a stronger password with few numbers and at least one special character.
Why they got hacked
The data was stolen because of two things only. First of all, they should not have stored passwords in a plain text file. Which is incredibly dumb, but that proves our point. 99% of companies do not care about this until a horrible thing happens to them and their data.
The second reason was that data was at the time (in 2015) already becoming a currency. Now in 2020, we know that data is currency. At first, the hacker wanted a ransom of 100 thousand dollars, which he did not receive. A few days/weeks later, the data was found being sold on the black market for $4000, where the hacker stated that he is hungry.
How to keep your adult friend finder account secure
Unfortunately, when signing up on their website, you do not have to have a mandatory robust password. And it is understandable from them, and they want the most amount of signups on their website, so they let you use a weak password. But please do not do that. Use a strong password that has nothing in common with the username, email, and name and preferably has at least two numbers and one unique character.
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