On February 13, crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo, which was being used to fundraise for the Freedom Convoy protests, was hacked. The personal information of more than 90,000 people who donated to the Freedom Convoy 2022 campaign was stolen.
Now, the Canadian government-funded media company CBC is using the stolen data, contacting those whose data was exposed, for a story.
CBC likely got a copy of the data from the leaked files hosting service Distributed Denial of Secrets or downloaded it at the time of the attack. The original link to the hacked data, posted on GiveSendGo.wtf, is no longer available.
Related: Learn how to protect your identity online so you won’t be affected by data breaches
CBC told donors that it was working on a story about the people who contributed funds.
The email sent to the donors said that the CBC is “interested in interviewing you both about why you may have donated to the cause, but also how you feel about having your personal information leaked.”
“Good morning.
This is David Fraser and Guy Quenneville from CBC Ottawa.
We’re working on a story about the people who allegedly contributed funds, through GiveSendGo, to the ongoing Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa, according to the public release of hacked data from the site.
We’re reaching out to you because your name and information appeared on the list, and we’re interested in interviewing you both about why you may have donated to the cause, but also how you feel about having had your personal information leaked.
We should stress: we are not automatically identifying anyone by name in our story. We need to verify with people that they indeed contributed, as a first step.
The second step is seeing if people will share their story with us.
If you’re interested, please write us back as soon as possible.
Thanks.”
On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deemed the convoy protest illegal by invoking the Emergencies Act.
