Data Breach Index Website “Leakbase” Shut Down

On December 2nd, Leakbase.pw, a data breach index website announced it has closed down the service effective immediately. In a tweet, the website said: “This project has been discontinued, thank you for your support over the past year and a half.”

In another tweet, the website vowed to compensate their users: “We understand many of you may have lost some time, so in an effort to offer compensation, please email. Send your LeakBase username and how much time you had left. We will have a high influx of emails so be patient; this could take a while,” the tweet said.

Leakbase started its operation in September 2016, allowing users to buy a membership and search queries on different databases including Dropbox, MySpace, LinkedIn, Taringa, VerticalScope, and hundreds of others.

Leakbase is now the second data breach indexing platform to suddenly quit its operation, previously LeakedSource was shut down after it was raided by law enforcement authorities. The reason for Leakbase’s shut down is still unclear, however, according to Brain Kreb of KrebsOnSecurity, it’s a result of raid linked to the raid of Hansa dark web market by the Dutch police back in July 2017.

An anonymous source also told Krebs that after getting hacked in April 2017 the original owners sold the website to someone who was allegedly connected to drug deals on Hansa Dark Web marketplace. Using the information acquired from Hansa’s database, the Dutch police tracked and apprehended one of the Leakbase owners.

Hansa is now under the Dutch police’s control, who randomly share a list of identified, active, and arrested Hansa vendors and buyers. Another Dark Web marketplace which was shut down and taken over by authorities is AlphaBay whose alleged owner committed suicide in Thai prison in this July.

At the time of publishing this article , the leakbase website was being redirected to HaveIbeenPwned ,another but legal data breach index and alert platform found by Troy Hunt ,an Australian security researcher