ATTENTION ALL FORMER CHUDBUDS (March 6th 2023, 10:00PM CST)
At some point recently, someone managed to gain access to my PC via a RAT--possibly sent to me by a chudbuds member named Luzbel under the pretense of asking me to help him test a minecraft server he was setting up for the fediverse. They then used this attack to silently gain access to the chudbuds.lol server via SSH and export a copy of the entire database, then leak it online. Emails, hashed passwords, and DMs were all included in this leak. They also stole and leaked private documents of mine such as tax records from my hard drive and photos from old discord logs between my husband and I. They gained access to passwords saved in my password manager--which they then used to temporarily hijack some of my online accounts. They timed this attack to coincide with the start of my live stream last night (March 5th), in order to maximize chaos and confusion and make it difficult for me to respond. I was able to shut down the server very quickly, but the damage was already done.
I suspect they executed this hack sometime over the last two weeks and then sat on the information until the opportune moment. It was a coordinated attack with multiple people either materially participating or who had advanced knowledge of what was going to happen. Trollcow (Elaine Miller), Book/Eris (who threatened to swat me a month ago), and other chudbuds detractors were present in my chat as this all unfolded. Based on posts and comments I saw leading up to and in the aftermath of this attack, I have strong suspicions several people on other fediverse instances (like bot@seal.cafe) may have known what was about to happen. Angry Canadian (Michael Thurlow, a known associate of Elaine) attempted calling me multiple times today. JohnFortniteKennedy (a former chudbud who recently got banned for posting a video of someone setting a kitten on fire) took credit for the hack in a post on his fediverse account. A kiwifarms user named Diamond Homonculus posted a video meme about me in the chudbuds thread shortly before I went live, and a thumbnail of that video was used in the OP of the imageboard post where the leak occurred shortly later. Another anonymous user on that imageboard unsuccessfully attempted to swat our family overnight in the aftermath of this, and took credit for that action on behalf of plate gang. Today, Ethan Ralph called for the revenge pornography stolen of me to be sent to minors, to classmates of my children. This is all to say that it is obvious many people were involved in this and were determined to do the maximum damage they could.
If you were a Chudbuds user, your email address, DMs, and hashed password HAVE all been leaked. Take appropriate steps to secure your email account and any other accounts which used the same password. The server was configured to have IP access logs turned off, but there is always the possibility they changed that in the nginx settings at some point before downloading data, so they may have that information as well. For people who have donated to the site through Donorbox and Stripe, those accounts were both protected by 2FA, and I have reviewed the access logs on those accounts and there is no indication they have been compromised.
Chudbuds is closed for good, and will not be reopening. The server hosting at BuyVM was terminated at my request overnight. The donation account through Donorbox has also been closed down, but any recurring donors should double check to make sure their recurring donation has been revoked. The guilded and matrix chats have been closed down, as has the Minecraft server and the blog site. I did make an earlier version of this announcement last night in the guilded server, and I apologize for the delay in setting up a redirected page with an announcement here for all of you. I've been working on tying up all these loose ends as well as scanning my computer and locking down all of my accounts. I've been getting 2FA notifications from people trying to access various accounts of mine all day. I haven't slept in nearly 48 hours.
I am incredibly sorry that this happened, although I know that's not much solace if you're one of the 3500 people who had an account there and is affected by this hack and leak. I started chudbuds back in September with absolutely no experience, and I foolishly thought that I was capable of running it, learning linux and server administration along the way. I thought I had taken appropriate steps to secure the server after a mod's account was compromised recently (possibly through the same method), and I naively never imagined someone would attempt to access my PC itself. I also never imagined someone would be so dedicated to attacking the site, me, my husband, and our children to go to the lengths that these people have. Obviously I was wrong, and grossly underestimated the potential for evil in people.
I won't be streaming any longer, and I am in the process of shutting down my online presence entirely. If you need to contact me for anything, or you just wanna call me a retard, I can still be reached (for now) through the chudbudslol@protonmail.com email. It's obviously time to DFE, total aylog victory. I wish you all the best, and I do sincerely apologize that I let you all down in this way. It was fun while it lasted.
-Claire