alert Epik Had A Major Breach

[DaveX]

Just read this. Looks like Epik may have been hacked and sensitive data compromised...

Read here:
https://domainnamewire.com/2021/09/14/hackers-claim-significant-epik-breach/

Thought I would share this.

 

[Digital Universe]

Well this take the cake as the most interesting edit of the year.

I had quoted your honey pot comment, but as I was writing the response, I noticed the honey pot text disappeared, and suddenly I was commenting on a post citing NaziMemorabilia.com as being a dildo distributor.

#OnlyOnNamePros

nP should add a LOL button!

 

[Digital Universe]

I know this might be a far out stretch, but could @Rob Monster be an actual real life undercover Nazi Hunter?

I mean, those don't alert customer FBI subpoena notes in the DB dump were/are pretty darn interesting.

I had the same thought, what if Epik is just one big epic "HoneyPot" to expose all. But again that is just another theory. As long as the innocent people are protected too, by not exposing all CC's/Pass'/etc.

Besides going undercover, how else do you catch nazi's?

#CodeNameEpik #HighlyClassified

They honeypot is for whoever made the backdoor.

And for "whoever" made all the data too easy to be cracked/exposed (plain text, "weak" unsalted MD5 hashes etc.,) that could also be part of the honeypot. This all together with the easy accessed backdoor by "lack of security" and "negligence".

I would certainly hope this to be true for Epik and Rob, but if not, I wish Epik and all the people affected all the best to recover from this nightmare and to learn from their "mistakes".

 

[Grilled]

And for "whoever" made all the data too easy to be cracked/exposed (plain text, "weak" unsalted MD5 hashes etc.,) that could also be part of the honeypot. This all together with the easy accessed backdoor by "lack of security" and "negligence".

I would certainly hope this to be true for Epik and Rob

Call me a sucker for happy endings, but this is the Hollywood ending I'm hoping for. If it just so happens that my data loss is collateral damage of a large scale undercover nazi hunt, this is the scenario I'd be OK with.

but if not, I wish Epik and all the people affected all the best to recover from this nightmare and to learn from their "mistakes".

So much for the hollywood ending then ...

But if this is the case, I really hope (as you do) for everyone to recover, and learn from this nightmare. It also wouldn't hurt if a nazi or two or three or more than four hundred and twenty not so sexy nazis were exposed as byproduct to the leak/poor code/security. Even if not the original intent of the leak, perhaps
it is Gods plan to expose more than four hundred twenty not so sexy nazis? As they say, everything happens for a reason, and often times, curses may be unseen blessings.

 

[tonyk2000]

OnlyOnNamePros... "Investigative journalists" working with mainstream media should definitely read this thread . There are a lot of technically incorrect facts and suggestions in mainstream media now. If any member here is also commenting elsewhere (reddit, etc... ) - please invite the authors to NP. They will learn that a domain registrar is a domain registration company for all sorts of domains/customers, and not a "webhosting company". They will also learn that each IT company has servers in some datacenter (colocation, etc) so trying to find any other connections between epik (with or without ideology) and their colocation provider is illogical. Etc, etc, etc...

 

[Beezy]

I think it has been useful for the security and research minded to add their perspective to what these tweets are showing, and how the data can be and is being used.

This can make a difference in patching a security hole in someone's life, i believe.

I am hoping that both better registrar practices and consumer practices come out of these discussions.

Also, as a seeker of truth, I am glad misinformation networks protected by epik are starting to be exposed and connected. Another win for the good guys there.

 

[April004]

https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites#Epik

 

[Grilled]

How much of this forgivable $100k PPP went to security/coders opposed to marketing/qommunication?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440170564543389697

 

[Finest]

How much of this $100k PPP went to security/coders opposed to marketing/qommunication?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440170564543389697

Not defending Epik as I made it clear I'm p*ssed off with their reported security practices. But to be fair, 100K won't help much. Security is bloody costly.

 

[Namersen]

How much of this forgivable $100k PPP went to security/coders opposed to marketing/qommunication?

Quoting from Molly's transcript, I guess it was around that time, May 2020:

Monster, 3:38:54 There was a time when, before Epik became more wildly successful, there was a time actually during the time of COVID when a lot of businesses were shutting down, and you couldn’t actually borrow any money very easily. And so we had refinanced the house and I used the proceeds of the refinance of the house to keep everybody fully employed at Epik. And that at the time was slightly awkward [unintelligible] but it all worked out, and we’re better off for it.

 

[Grilled]

How much of this forgivable $100k PPP went to security/coders opposed to marketing/qommunication?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440170564543389697

.

Not defending Epik as I made it clear I'm p*ssed off with their reported security practices. But to be fair, 100K won't help much. Security is bloody costly.

Fair point.

Out of curiosity, does anybody know who the VP of Security is over at epik now?

We know they have/had a VP of Strategy and Qommunications, just wondering if their marketing team/budget is greater than their security team/budget?

I mean, who is epiks CTO now? According to a comment from Joseph Peterson (@Slanted), April 19th, 2021 via DomainNameWire.com, @NickLim was at one point named epik's CTO.

https://domainnamewire.com/2021/04/14/bloomberg-writes-about-nick-lim-and-epik/#comment-2264695

"...Indeed, Nick’s sudden appearance as CTO, as part of Rob’s shift in strategic direction for Epik, was 1 factor that led to my resignation...."

But @NickLim who according to the DNW article remains an epik shareholder, has since left epik. Thus a fair question might be, who's been at the security wheel prior to and after @NickLim's epik departure? And how long has there been holes in the ship?

 

[Grilled]

Quoting from Molly's transcript, I guess it was around that time, May 2020:

Monster, 3:38:54 There was a time when, before Epik became more wildly successful, there was a time actually during the time of COVID when a lot of businesses were shutting down, and you couldn’t actually borrow any money very easily. And so we had refinanced the house and I used the proceeds of the refinance of the house to keep everybody fully employed at Epik. And that at the time was slightly awkward [unintelligible] but it all worked out, and we’re better off for it.

Also from the transcript::https://blog.mollywhite.net/monster-qa/

Monster, 0:15:06 ... And then in June of this year, we raised $32 million. And we ended up basically being able to just dramatically…

 

[tonyk2000]

The last email from Epik ("Update and Options for Affected Epik Users", dated Sep 20th) appears be written by a lawyer. Which is a good sign - no politics, no religion. It is unfortunate that the lawyer is so US-centric that (s)he forgot about non-U.S. epik customers. With all due respect, non-U.S. customers are unable to call U.S. tollfree 800 numbers, and all the references to "free credit monitoring", "Federal Trade Commission" and the like are irrelevant outside U.S...

 

[Grilled]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440243994869436428

...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440245147531309059

 

[Finest]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440243994869436428

...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440245147531309059

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Toxicity is on maximum now.
Regardless of fakes or not, experiments, honeypot etc.

 

[carob]

Very interesting...

I am also sure the DOJ and FBI will absolutely love information about their investigation and subpoenas being revealed in this data breach.

Brad

There is another angle of Epik that could invite investigation, especially of customers: Tax.

Rob Monster had been advertising their escrow services on here saying that could help sellers transact "tax-free": That certainly could attract attention.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/if...ng-time-and-money.1119508/page-2#post-7080342

Which was in reply to this claim: https://www.namepros.com/threads/if...-wasting-time-and-money.1119508/#post-7079390

In the UK you have to say on your tax return if you used any tax avoidance schemes. Forget to say so, get in trouble later. Say yes and you have to identify what you did so the taxman can look into it.

 

[BrandingGo]

- WLM was disabled as well not working (impossible to fixing, Noel staff don't know what is White label marketplace powered by Epik).

- Free WordPress option for new installs unavailable anymore.

 

[ixex]

not that common

certainly not among registrars

What I meant and should have said, it is common among the micro circle of owners that I know.

 

[Grilled]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1440335853415395344

...

In fairness, not referring to the extra step that requires the registrar to register a searched domain in order for it to be front running, but referring to when you search for a domain at Godaddy, add to cart, a few days/weeks/months later, it's not uncommon to receive an email from Godaddy or asking if I'd like to continue with my purchase.

I would however challenge whomever has access to the alleged table that contains every domain that was ever added to cart at epik, to audit that table against domains currently owned by epik or an epik employee, as that evidence would be needed to prove domain front running. As is, isn't the storing items added to cart common practice, or is that limited to Ebay/Godaddy?

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Looks that all activity on Epik is tracked and logged...