Discord Halts Operation After Hackers Steal Data of 760k Users

In a public statement, Discord.io disclosed that it was shutting down its services for the foreseeable future as it had suffered a massive data breach. The attack had allowed the hacker to steal information of its 760,000 users.

Discord.io is not an official Discord website, rather it is a third-party service that allows Discord server owners to create personalized links for their channels.

Discord.io was made aware of the breach after the hacked database was found to be for sale on the new Breached hacking forums. The new third-party forum is the rebirth of the infamous cybercrime marketplace famous for selling and buying hacked databases.

The stolen information included sensitive details like, all users’ usernames, email addresses, and Discord IDs. Some users’ billing addresses as well as salted and hashed passwords have also been stolen. Discord.io assured its members that as the company does not store any user’s financial information on its servers, thus, this data was not exfiltrated.

Non-sensitive information like, internal user ID, registration data, coin balance, user status, API keys, etc., was also accessed by the attacker.

On confirming the authenticity of this data, Discord.io announced that it had canceled all active subscriptions and would be refunding members who had purchased premium subscriptions in the last 30 days.

In addition, its own investigation revealed that the breach was caused by a vulnerability in its website’s code, which allowed the attacker to access and download the entire user data.

Moreover, Discord.io assured its members that, ‘’We will continue to investigate the possible causes of the breach, and we will take steps to ensure that this does not happen again. This will include a complete rewrite of our website’s code, as well as a complete overhaul of our security practices.’’

Discord.io explained that the exposure of such information creates potential risks for compromised individuals, especially in the form of phishing attacks. It also makes it possible for others to link an individual’s Discord account to a given email address.

The company also advised members who’ve used the earlier (before 2018) username/password registration format to sign up an account, to change their password. Especially if the same password was used to log into other websites.