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Hacktivists have leaked the details of more than 700,000 users of Andrew Tate’s so-called “online university”.
Hacktivists posting feminist and trans rights emojis have hacked ultra-conservative men’s rights influencer Andrew Tate’s The Real World website and subsequently leaked the details of 794,000 users to the media.
The Daily Dot got the tip when the hacktivist group contacted it directly with details of the hack.
According to sources close to the hackers, the Daily Dot reports that The Real World – Tate’s self-described online university, where users can sign up for a monthly fee of about US$50 – was “hilariously insecure”.
The hackers were able to disrupt one of Tate’s own streaming sessions, flooding the chatroom with emojis such as the trans flag and the feminist fist, as well as doctored images of Tate wrapped in a pride flag.
Tate is a known homophobe and self-described misogynist.
In addition to hacking The Real World’s chatroom, the hacktivist also grabbed the usernames of 794,000 site users and 324,382 unique email addresses of users who were most likely booted from the platform for not paying their monthly fees.
In a statement supplied to the Daily Dot, the hackers said they were able to “upload emojis, delete attachments, crash everyone’s clients, and temporarily ban people” due to a vulnerability in the site.
The Real World predominantly appeals to teenage males, whom Tate teaches his “41 tenets for men”. One former member has described the site and its teachings as possessing a “cult-like atmosphere”.
This incident is not the first time user details of The Real World’s subscribers have been leaked.
In May 2024, it was revealed that a MongoDB database containing 88 gigabytes of data belonging to 968,447 users had been openly exposed on the internet since at least 8 April 2024, likely due to a misconfiguration.
The data exposed included user IDs, email addresses, encrypted passwords, password expiration dates, account verification status, recovery codes, and reset tokens.
A total of 891,646 user devices were also exposed, revealing user IDs, tokens, and what platform users were accessing the platform from.
The date also included multifactor authentication tokens, details of server bans, and event logs. Twenty-two million user messages dating back as far as October 2022 were also exposed.
Tate has been arrested multiple times on suspicion of rape and is currently being investigated over allegations of human trafficking, sex with a minor, and money laundering. He has been under house arrest in Romania since August 2024.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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