OnlyFans has denied it has been hacked after explicit photos of hundreds of performers, including Bella Thorne, were reportedly been leaked online by hackers.
‘OnlyFans has not been hacked. Any reports of a security breach are false. There is a group of people purchasing, compiling and then illegally hosting content,’ a spokesperson said.
‘We have sent them a cease and desist letter and filed a WIPO Complaint against the registrant. The registrant has not responded to the Complaint and we are pursuing further legal action.’
According to BackChannel, a security company that studies the behavior of cybercriminals, a link to a Google Drive folder was ‘shared on a low-tier hacker forum by a threat actor known for collecting and exchanging sexually explicit material’ last month.
BackChannel says the folder contains videos and pictures stolen from hundreds of OnlyFans creators.
‘In our effort to notify all users and spread awareness of the activity, BackChannel is notifying impacted users, the cloud services provider, and other concerned parties threatened by this security incident,’ BackChannel wrote in a disclosure online.
Hundreds of OnlyFans creators, including Bella Thorne (left and right), have reportedly been hacked by cybercriminals who posted explicit images online
BackChannel says the folder contains videos and pictures stolen from hundreds of OnlyFans performers (disclosure pictured)
OnlyFans said ‘content protection is a top priority and OnlyFans has a dedicated anti-piracy team that provides legal DMCA support to issue takedowns on behalf of the creators’.
‘It is a violation of our Terms of Service to copy, duplicate or record user content, and DMCA law protects creator content being published without proper permissions. This procedure is inclusive of all required notices to move any infringement up to litigation if target websites refuse to comply,’ the company said in the statement.
‘OnlyFans also notifies the offending domain registrars and hosting services as well as reporting to all major search engines. With a duty to help battle against illegal piracy, OnlyFans is firmly in the fight to protect user content. Takedown success rates have been over 75% across offending image hosting sites, torrent providers, and cyber lockers,’ the statement continued.
Earlier on Wednesday, BackChannel founder Aaron DeVera told BleepingComputer that the Google Drive folder originally contained folders for 279 OnlyFans creators, with one of the folders having over 10GB of videos and photos.
DeVera said it appears that all of the content was uploaded into the folder in October 2020.
‘OnlyFans has somewhat weak content controls around their content, and there are plenty of bots and scrapers a legitimate subscriber can use. What makes this unique is that so many users were bundled in one folder,’ DeVera told BleepingComputer.
His team also believes that it was compiled by more than one person.
‘This implies that multiple contributors likely added to the cache, or that the uploader sourced the content from multiple leaks. We do not assess that the poster on RaidForums is the original uploader of the Google Drive content,’ DeVera added.
The folder also appears to have been shared from the City College of San Francisco account. BackChannel representatives are currently trying to contact them to remove the entire folder.
Thorne (left and right) along with Cardi B, Blac Chyna and Tyga are among the celebrities who use the platform
A DailyMail.com request for comment to Thorne’s reps was not immediately returned.
OnlyFans is a content subscription service based in London. Creators on the site can earn money from users who subscribe to their content.
Thorne along with Cardi B, Blac Chyna and Tyga are among the celebrities who use the platform.
BackChannel created an online tool that allows OnlyFans creators to check to see if their accounts were impacted.
If a creator’s content is found in the leak, BackChannel recommends users to visit https://labac.dev/content, which can be used to get the content removed.
The incident comes months after Thorne sparked outrage with sex workers when she joined OnlyFans and then raked in $1million on her first day.
The former Disney star created an OnlyFans profile in August 2020.
But she angered several people who slammed her for charging $200 for a ‘naked’ photo where she was not actually nude.
Thorne apologized at the time but sex workers blamed her for the subscription platform instating new payment caps and holds.
Content creators said Only Fans subsequently imposed payment caps of $50 on pay-per-view posts from a previous cap of $200, and a $100 cap on tips.
