Yes, a fair amount of laughter has rippled across the Internet on report that a million logins to a porn site were left exposed by a security oversight. The jokes write themselves. Indeed, it is hard to write about this incident without committing a double entendre or two (and we haven't tried.)
Of course it is not so funny for the potential victims, who now have to worry that their private indiscretions will become public. They will be left wondering if or when employers, spouses – or potential blackmailers – may come across identifying data linking them to the YouPorn website.
Moreover, given pervasive carelessness about passwords, many of the exposed logins could allow hackers to breach all of a user's online presence, including bank accounts or other financial data.
Apparently the YouPorn episode was a security breach waiting to happen. According to security expert Anders Nilsson, the URL with the login information was sitting unnoticed – but unprotected – for several years, possible since late 2007. A hacker came across the exposed site, and realized that it contained login data including first and last names.
