A hacker compromised several Reddit accounts to prove it needs 2FA

A mysterious hacker is responsible for a mass Reddit defacement of 70 subreddits, he wants to demonstrate the lack of security of the popular platform.

Someone is creating the panic on Reddits, a mysterious user behind the name TehBVM (@TehBVM) claims to have already popped more than 100 Reddit subreddits. The user already targeted subreddits related to Battlefield One game, Marvel Studios, Star Wars, How to Hack, and Game of Thrones, he also defaced popular subreddits like TIFU (today I f**ked up).

The hacker spent the last weeks hijacking Reddit moderator accounts and defacing their subreddit pages, changing cover images and CSS.

Which is the motivation behind the defacements?

Apparently, TehBVM is doing it partly to demonstrate the lack of security posture of Reddit, the hacker hasn’t disclosed personal information belonging to the Reddit users.

“Around 70 or more subreddits have been defaced since 4 May – including /r/gameofthrones,/r/starwars, /r/pics, /r/books, /r/marvel, /r/robocraft and others.”

TehBVM did not explain how he compromised the Reddit accounts the unique certainly seems to be that he hasn’t launched a brute force attack against the platform. It is likely that the hacker is using login credentials related to other data breaches with the hope that users have shared it among multiple online services.

TehBVM is also offering moderator account credentials on the hacked subreddits.

Clearly this kind of incidents could be simply avoided by introducing a two-factor authentication mechanism.

Reddit has already planned the introduction of the 2FA feature, but it is still to develop a beta.

The lack of a strong authentication method was already exploited in the past by hackers, in 2013 other subreddits have been popped in similar circumstances.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Reddit, hacking)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.