Reddit got hacked through a phishing attack targeting its employees

Photo: Brett Jordan/Unsplash

Bad actors were able to steal a Reddit employee's credentials through a targeted phishing attack, and hackers were able to infiltrate its systems on February 5. According to a spokesperson from the company, they were able to access some of the site's "internal docs, code, as well as some internal dashboards and business systems." Data like contact information for hundreds of company contracts, current and former employees, and some advertisers were also exposed. However, Reddit assures users that the security team investigating the incident hasn't found any evidence so far that the passwords or any other non-public data have been compromised. They haven't found any indication that the stolen information was shared online, at least for now. Reddit said they are "continuing to investigate and monitor the situation closely."

Reddit employees were apparently getting "plausible-sounding prompts" that lead to a website that mimics the look and behaviour of its intranet gateway. It was designed this way so they can steal people's logins and second-factor tokens. An employee, unfortunately, fell for the scheme but immediately self-reported. This allowed Reddit's security team to respond to the situation.

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Reddit's Clubhouse competitor is coming to subreddits

Source: Reddit

As rumoured earlier, Reddit has its take on Clubhouse's social audio offering. Called Reddit Talk, it'll be available within subreddits. But the feature is currently only available as a "sneak preview," and right now, only subreddit moderators can initiate a Talk. Hosts can invite, mute, and remove speakers. But any iOS or Android Reddit user can listen to these discussions. Moderators who are interested in trying out the feature can add themselves to a waitlist for access.

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Reddit is rumoured to be working on a Clubhouse-like experience

Photo by Brett Jordan/Unsplash

If the reports are accurate, Reddit is the latest tech company to explore bringing voice chats into its site. The service is "quietly exploring" moderator-run voice chats, similar to what Clubhouse offers. But according to Mashable's source, its development is still in the early stages and described as confidential. Reddit hasn't commented on the rumoured feature.

This potential function might be part of Reddit's power-ups program, which it announced in August 2020. This "experiment" offers extra features for subreddits whose members buy "a minimum threshold of power-up subscriptions." Some additional features include the "ability to upload and stream up to HD quality video" and "inline GIFs in comments."

Reddit will soon offer promoted posts to advertisers on its mobile apps

Similar to what Facebook has done, Reddit is gearing up to sell promoted posts to its advertisers for both Android and iOS apps. According to Marketing Land, Reddit sent out an email to its advertisers about this claiming that its mobile users account for 41 percent of the time its users spend on the site. Promoted posts have been available for the desktop since 2016. Reddit promises to get the same targeting as the desktop ones, which is by interest, community, geography, and device. These will also get upvotes, downvotes, and comments. It’s coming on Monday, March 19 to iOS users and will hit Android devices in the coming weeks.

Source: CNET