Cyber Incident Victim: AdultSingleSites.com.au
Date:
Jul 2016
Location:
Australia
Summary
AdultSingleSites.com.au experienced a data breach as part of a series of attacks targeting dating platforms, orchestrated by a Moroccan hacker who also compromised AfrikaDating.com. The incident resulted in the exposure of 67,118 user records from the Australian site. This breach occurred alongside separate intrusions into two Muslim-focused dating services, Shadi.com and MuslimMatch.com, where attackers stole millions of user credentials and private messages. Data from all four sites was subsequently leaked publicly, with credentials appearing in repositories like LeakedSource and Have I Been Pwned? for exposure verification.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 2 motives | 1 technique |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
In mid-July 2016, multiple dating platforms experienced data breaches resulting in public data dumps. On July 10, 2016, attackers compromised Shadi.com, a Muslim-focused dating service, with LeakedSource confirming possession of 2,035,020 user records containing email addresses and unprotected cleartext passwords. This incident followed a separate breach at MuslimMatch.com reported approximately two weeks earlier by security researcher Troy Hunt, involving 150,000 user accounts and 790,000 private messages where passwords were hashed using MD5. Preceding both Muslim dating site incidents, a Moroccan hacker targeted niche dating platforms the previous month (June 2016), exfiltrating and leaking data from AfrikaDating.com (12,738 records) and AdultSingleSites.com.au (67,118 records). The attacks demonstrated a pattern of targeting culturally or functionally specialized dating services over a concentrated timeframe.
The breaches exposed sensitive user information across all platforms, with Shadi.com's incident standing out due to both the volume of records (over 2 million) and the storage of passwords in unencrypted form, heightening credential misuse risks. MuslimMatch.com's hashed passwords provided marginally better protection despite MD5's known vulnerabilities. For AdultSingleSites.com.au and AfrikaDating.com, the article did not specify whether authentication data was included in the 67,118 and 12,738 leaked records respectively. Affected users were directed to third-party services LeakedSource and Have I Been Pwned? to verify potential exposure, though no mitigation actions by the compromised sites themselves were documented. The cumulative impact involved unauthorized access to over 2.2 million accounts across four distinct dating services within approximately six weeks.