ShinyHunters Claims Pornhub Data Theft via Mixpanel Breach

A notorious hacking group known as ShinyHunters has claimed responsibility for stealing sensitive data from premium subscribers of the adult website Pornhub, demanding a Bitcoin ransom to prevent its public release. The announcement came on Tuesday, with the group providing samples of the purported data that include users' search histories, viewing patterns, download activities, email addresses, locations, and video metadata. The breach, which affects an undisclosed number of Pornhub's premium users worldwide, stems from a cybersecurity incident at the site's former third-party analytics provider, Mixpanel.

Pornhub, operated by Ottawa-based Ethical Capital Partners and boasting over 100 million daily visits, disclosed the issue in a statement on December 12. The company emphasized that the incident occurred entirely within Mixpanel's environment and involved only a limited set of analytics events, such as session logs and behavioral metrics from historical records dating back several years. "This was not a breach of Pornhub Premium's systems," the statement read. "No passwords, credentials, payment details or government IDs were compromised or exposed." Pornhub, which ended its...