LogInThe company responded to hackers' claims that they had stolen two million age-verification photos.
The debacle surrounding Discord's latest massive data leak continues, with the company releasing an update on just how many users had their government ID photos – originally shared to appeal the decisions of Discord's age verification system – exposed.
In case you missed it, one of Discord's third-party customer service providers was compromised by a group of hackers last week, who stole information including government ID images – like driver's licenses and passports – names, Discord usernames, emails, the last four digits of credit card numbers, purchase histories (if linked to the account), IP addresses, and messages with Discord's customer service agents.
Later, a group claiming responsibility for the breach said that when it comes to the most important documents they accessed – the IDs – they managed to obtain 2,185,151 age verification images, amounting to around 1.5 TB of data
Responding to the claim, Discord provided a statement of its own, saying the number shared by the purported perpetrators is greatly exaggerated, and in reality, only around "70,000 users may have had government-ID photos exposed," which, don't get me wrong, is still a lot, but nowhere near 2 million. Discord believes the figure was inflated intentionally in order to "extort a payment" from the company, which it has no intention of doing, stating that it "will not reward those responsible for their illegal actions."
Below is the full statement shared by Discord's spokesman Nu Wexler with the media:
"Following last week's announcement about a security incident involving a third-party customer service provider, we want to address inaccurate claims by those responsible that are circulating online. First, as stated in our blog post, this was not a breach of Discord, but rather a third-party service we use to support our customer service efforts. Second, the numbers being shared are incorrect and part of an attempt to extort a payment from Discord. Of the accounts impacted globally, we have identified approximately 70,000 users that may have had government-ID photos exposed, which our vendor used to review age-related appeals. Third, we will not reward those responsible for their illegal actions.
All affected users globally have been contacted and we continue to work closely with law enforcement, data protection authorities, and external security experts. We've secured the affected systems and ended work with the compromised vendor. We take our responsibility to protect your personal data seriously and understand the concern this may cause."
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