INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE:

Analysis of the data by the Daily Dot revealed the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of those who registered web domains for a range of sites related to everything from the QAnon conspiracy theory to forums for supporters of former President Donald Trump. The data was also verified on Wednesday evening by the Record.

The Daily Dot spoke with an individual listed as the registrar for TheDonald, an offshoot of a pro-Trump forum banned from Reddit last year, that operates from the domain Patriots.win. The individual confirmed that the information listed in the breach was his but claimed that he had distanced himself from the site.

The original TheDonald subreddit, which boasted nearly 800,000 members, was removed by Reddit for repeatedly violating the platform's rules against harassment, hate speech, and content manipulation.

The forum's replacement at Patriots.win has also found itself embroiled in controversy following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol after members were found to have discussed hanging and beheading politicians.

Another individual listed as running a knockoff version of 8chan also confirmed to the Daily Dot that the information listed in the breach was accurate over the phone.

A Linux engineer tasked with conducting an impact assessment on behalf of a client who uses Epik's services told the Daily Dot that the breach was one of the worst he had ever seen. The engineer did not have permission to speak about the breach by his employer and was granted anonymity by the Daily Dot.

"They are fully compromised end-to-end," they said. "Maybe the worst I've ever seen in my 20-year career."

The engineer pointed the Daily Dot to what they described as Epik's "entire primary database," which contains hosting account usernames and passwords, SSH keys, and even some credit card numbers--all stored in plaintext.

The data also includes Auth-Codes, passcodes that are needed to transfer a domain name between registrars. The engineer stated that with all the data in the leak, which also included admin passwords for WordPress logins, any attacker could easily take over the websites of countless Epik customers.

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