USENET SHUTDOWN: MOMENTUM HACKER SHUTS DOWN THE OLDEST & BIGGEST WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTED DISCUSSION SYSTEM

An unprecedented incident has left the cybersecurity community without words. Various user reports and vendors from Usenet, the world’s largest discussion network, report a potential massive security breach that has created multiple connection issues.

Usenet (the short way of saying Users Network) is a network of services and clients in which participants meet virtually in so-called “newsgroups”; because these networks are decentralized, users consider them secure and private, so illegal content, such as pirated software, leaks, and more, proliferates.

The use of this discussion network is getting smaller and smaller, although not enough to stop considering its security risks. The latest figures say the number of daily publications on Usenet is 107 million, while more than 60 TB of data is loaded daily. 

UseNext, one of the largest service providers, revealed that a security breach could have revealed the names and information of its clients’ bank accounts. Apparently, many specialists on the subject have linked this incident to a Usenet client known as “Momentum”. Some of those affected claim that Momentum managers have been collecting users’ credentials to upload to a platform known as NewZBee.

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