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Exclusive: Steps to Life Christian ministry hit by data breach

A total of 100,000 records related to customers and staff of the Victorian Seventh Day Adventist media organisation were allegedly posted for sale online.

user icon David Hollingworth
Tue, 02 Jul 2024
Exclusive: Steps to Life Christian ministry hit by alleged data breach
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The contact details and internal messages of employees and customers of a Seventh Day Adventist organisation in Victoria have been allegedly posted to a popular clear web hacking forum.

A poster named AngelGF is selling the data, which they claim totals 100,000 records relating to customer purchase data and email messages.

The data appears to belong to Steps to Life, a “special ministry” focused on spreading religious media, such as instructional DVDs and television programs, recorded in the ministry’s own studios.

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The post – headed “Australia steps.org.au Total records: 100K” – features four sets of sample data, with some significant overlap. The first of four sample lists includes names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses, as well as internal data such as “checkout_flag” and “points”.

The second sample data set appears to have a slightly different set of details belonging to the same people listed in the first sample data set but without the internal customer data, while the fourth list appears to list payment details, with fields such as payment methods and the amount paid for a particular purchase.

The third set of sample data, however, appears to be email messages submitted to the website via its contact form. The messages range from purchase requests and updates to discussions of faith and requests for medical advice.

Most of the personal information is related to individuals from Australia; there are also messages from customers in Papua New Guinea and records of individuals in Hong Kong and Puerto Rico.

The total number of Steps to Life customers impacted is currently unconfirmed.

According to the ministry’s About page, Steps to Life was established in 2006 as “a television recording studio specialising in the production of high-quality, Christ-centred, television programs and DVDs, proclaiming the gospel as pertinent to the world living in the end time of biblical prophetic history. Film media was seen as a way of proclaiming the soon coming of Jesus to a world population that is expanding at an exponential rate.”

Steps to Life also sells several healthcare products, such as coconut oil remedies for Alzheimer’s and activated charcoal.

Steps to Life has not responded to Cyber Daily’s request for comment on its response to the alleged incident.

David Hollingworth

David Hollingworth

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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