What Ashley Madison and Patreon have in common

The Bay Area start-up Patreon recently became the latest company to fall victim to hackers who put the online crowdfunding site’s users’ personal data at risk. Now the company is complaining that a website posting the data may be making the situation even worse.

A website called TheCthulhu.com, created by twenty-one year-old Thomas White, has made information from hacked companies publically available, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. White, who says he lives in the United Kingdom, has also posted data from the Ashley Madison hack. The online hookup site marketed to married people was hacked in July, with information from millions of user accounts released.

White’s motive in releasing the data, the Chronicle reports, is to demonstrate how easy it is to access user information from corporate hacks, so security experts can study the problems and the security community can critique damage control efforts.

White also says that journalists have a valid public interest in the data from security breaches, and notes that certain mainstream tech journals have already linked to his site in their articles.

But one security expert told the Chronicle that White’s posting may have overstepped appropriate boundaries, and suggested that making data easily accessible could be considered an ethical lapse.

The Patreon data does not include credit card numbers, and other personal information on White’s site remains encrypted and out of reach. Still, the company is concerned that the ease of access that TheCthulhu.com creates could make its users more vulnerable.