Breach, Data Security

Over 390M impacted by Russian social network breach

Credit: Adobe Stock Images

Major Russian social networking service VK, also known as VKontakte, had data from 390.4 million users stolen from a third-party data breach exposed by the threat actor "Hikki-Chan" on BreachForums, reports Cybernews.

Included in the leaked 27.6 GB archive belonging to VK — which was co-founded by recently arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov before being relinquished to Russian state-owned firms in December 2021 — were individuals' names, sex, ID numbers, profile pictures, and location information, said Hikki-Chan. Hikki-Chan was reported by Cyfirma to have targeted several public and private organizations in Israel since its emergence earlier this year. Such a data breach comes two years after VK was noted by cybersecurity researcher Bob Diachenko to have had 32 million records, including full names, photos, and other API-queried information from open and protected accounts. VK was also reported by ZDNET to have had 171 million accounts' data stolen and sold for only nearly $580 more than eight years ago.

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