Hacker Claims WIRED User Data Stolen; Ars Technica Says It Was Unaffected

Earlier this month a hacker using the name Lovely claimed to have breached a Condé Nast user database and released a list of more than 2.3 million user records from WIRED. The released materials reportedly contain demographic information — name, email, address, phone and similar details — but do not include passwords.

The hacker also said they would release an additional 40 million records for other Condé Nast properties, including Vogue, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and more. Ars Technica says it was not affected by the incident because it runs on its own bespoke tech stack. The hacker posted that they had urged Condé Nast to patch vulnerabilities, writing: "Condé Nast does not care about the security of their users data.

It took us an entire month to convince them to fix the vulnerabilities on their websites. We will leak more of their users' data (40+ million) over the next few weeks. Enjoy!" DataBreaches.Net says Lovely misled the site into believing the hacker was trying to help patch vulnerabilities and that the actor instead appears to be a "cybercriminal" seeking a payout.

"As for 'Lovely,' they played me. Condé Nast should never pay them a dime, and no one else should ever, as their word clearly cannot be trusted," the site wrote. Condé Nast has not issued a public statement, and Ars says it has not been informed internally of the hack.

Key Topics

Tech, United States, Data Breach, Condé Nast, Wired, Cybersecurity, Privacy