The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have arrested an Ontario man who is accused of running a database which was selling usernames and passwords belonging to over 1.5 billion people.
The suspect, Jordan Evan Bloom from Thornhill, has been selling the information secretly for quite some time.
The 27-year-old man is now facing several charges including trafficking sensitive data which contains usernames and passwords, unauthorized computer use and possession of properties that were obtained illegally.
Bloom's case is a notable one due to the infamy of the website he allegedly operated-the notorious LeakedSource.com. This site, hosted by a firm in Canada, was the leading platform through which Bloom sold all the data he collected from the dark web. The database gained a significant following throughout its existence.
The data found on LeakedSource had obtained indirectly through various past data breaches targeting major tech companies that store high-ranked information. Some of the affected firms include Dropbox, Twitter, LinkedIn, Weebly, Foursquare, Tumblr, Rambler.ru, MySpace and AdultFriendFinder.
Almost all the organizations mentioned in the list have very many users from all over the world, and any breach into their system would be a significant loss to all their users.
LeakedSource was shut down by the police back in January 2017. While the site was up and running, users would register to get full access to the database. After paying the given fee, users would be able to access the system's database, which mostly contained usernames and passwords.
Being the administrator of the site, Bloom is said to have earned nearly $250,000 through the business.
Through a long investigation, police were finally able to determine that the servers hosting LeakedSource.com were based in Quebec. They later seized the servers in search of a suspect.
The operation ultimately saw Bloom arrested in mid-January when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was able to connect him to the site's administration.
According to Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sargent Maurizio Rosa, Bloom acted more as a middleman between the dark web and the clearnet (regular internet), assembling the extensive database from darknet sources.
He would obtain the stolen data within hidden dark web networks to later post on LeakedSource.
Police indicated that several Canadians were affected by the data breaches involved in the LeakedSource database, although the number is not yet quantified specifically.
Rosa has since advised all Canadians who use online profiles to create stronger passwords to lower the risk that their accounts will be compromised by hackers.
According to computer security experts, LeakedSource was one of the largest online databases containing usernames and passwords.
Bloom is currently in police custody awaiting trial.
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