Social Networking Developer Site Database Hacked In SQL Injection Attack

A site for social networking developers has been hit with a major SQL injection attack that exposed more than 30 million user names and passwords. RockYou, a site that delivers widgets for social networking developers for MySpace, Facebook, and others, has since fixed the bug -- but not before the hacker hit.

Database security vendor Imperva notified RockYou over the weekend about a serious SQL injection flaw that could expose its user accounts, and the social networking responded it had fixed the bug. But a hacker who goes by "igigi" today demonstrated in a post how he was able to get the data from the site's unsecured database that stored data in the clear by exploiting the SQL injection bug.

He boasted he was able to grab a list of 32,603,388 user accounts and passwords, which were stored in plain text. "It's so lame, and I'm sure that more than half does work for myspace and other sites," he wrote in his post, suggesting the victimized users reuse the same password for their social networking profiles as well.

Amichai Shulman, CTO with Imperva, says the worst-case scenario is that an attacker could access the victims' Webmail accounts. "Users should quickly change the passwords on their Webmail accounts," Shulman says. "[And] social networking sites have a responsibility to protect their data. Many of their users are not educated about Internet security, and getting to market fast isn't a substitute for getting things right."

RockYou had not responded to requests for an interview as of this posting. Meanwhile, the hacker who claims to have accessed the user accounts warned RockYou: "Don't lie to your customers, or i will publish everything."

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