Pornhub hit by security breach as hackers threaten to expose up to 200 million users

Around 200 million Pornhub users could have their data exposed after hackers claimed to have breached the adult site's security.

Despite restrictions put in place earlier this year to limit the amount of adult content that could be accessed by young people in particular, it seems sites such as Pornhub are remaining as popular as ever.

Although many folks found a method to ensure that they could still access the website without having to provide personal information and a photo, the UK is now looking at proposing new laws to close this loophole for good, which would perhaps see numbers in the UK drop even further.

Another thing which may well put users off, particularly those who pay the subscription fee for Pornhub premium, is the recent security breach which threatens to expose the data of premium users across the world.

According to Bleeping Computer, cybercriminals who hacked into the site late last month alleged to have a massive data set of records that included email addresses, location, video titles, search keywords, activity types and timestamps for over 200 million entries.

In a statement, Pornhub said: "We recently learned that an unauthorised party gained unauthorised access to analytics data stored with Mixpanel, a third-party data analytics service provide.

"The unauthorised party was able to use this unauthorised access to extract a limited set of analytics events for some users."

Pornhub's numbers in the UK have dropped since the proof of age requirements were first introduced (Getty Stock)

Premium users have access to millions of videos, including over 100,000 which cannot be seen by your regular Joe, with the premium porn fans paying around £11 for the privilege.

Fortunately for those worried, Pornhub has suggested that passwords, credentials or government IDs were not compromised or exposed as it was not a breach of their own system.

They added: It said: “Specifically, this situation affects only select Premium users.

“It is important to note this was not a breach of Pornhub Premium’s systems.

“Passwords, payment details, and financial information remain secure and were not exposed.”

ShinyHunters were reportedly behind the breach (Getty Stock)

However, the company also made it clear that it hadn't worked with Mixpanel since 2023, suggesting that any data that was potentially compromised was likely from two years ago or earlier.

Mixpanel CEO Jen Taylor said in a statement: "We took comprehensive steps to contain and eradicate unauthorised access and secure impacted user accounts.

"We engaged external cybersecurity partners to remediate and respond to the incident."

The cybercrime group ShinyHunters claimed that it was behind the intrusion and reportedly told the adult site it has access to 94GB of data of data belonging to premium users.

Pornhub added: "While our investigation is ongoing, we encourage all users to remain vigilant by monitoring their accounts for any suspicious emails or unusual activity."