Tech

How bad is the Discord hack? What you need to know.

Published

6 months ago

October 11, 2025

Vicky

Seventy-thousand. That's the number of users who may have had their government-issued IDs stolen as part of a major breach of the popular chat and messaging app Discord. While that may seem like a small number when considering Discord has hundreds of millions of users, there is a more concerning factor here — tech companies continuing to require identification from some of its users and the security risk involved in maintaining that information.

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What happened in the Discord hack?

Last week, the popular chat and messaging platform Discord announced that a third-party customer support vendor had suffered a breach. Any information that a user provided to a customer support representative with this third-party could have potentially been stolen by a bad actor. Discord said this included usernames, names, email addresses, chats with the customer support team, limited billing information such as the last four digits of a credit card, and photos of a "small number" of government IDs.

On Thursday, Discord updated this notice to include more details, including a specific number of affected users. In total, up to 70,000 users had their government-issued IDs exposed. According to Discord, "Of the accounts impacted globally, we have identified approximately 70,000 users that may have had government-ID photos exposed, which our vendor used to review age-related appeals."

What are age-related appeals?

In the past, Discord did not collect government IDs from users. However, many states began requiring certain internet apps and services to prove users are not minors, either through a digital ID or facial recognition.

Discord allows users to submit a photo of themselves to prove their age; those pictures are then run through automated age verification systems. These systems estimate the user's age and either let them proceed on the site or deny them access. Photos submitted are then immediately deleted from the age verification system.

However, in some cases, these age verification systems get things wrong. Users can then submit an appeal along with a photo of their government ID. Discord's breach happened when its third-party vendor that processes its appeals was hacked.

As these age verification requirements spread, more sites will be forced to collect more information from users, giving hackers a trove of new information to pilfer.

What now?

As NBC News reports, hackers claiming to be behind the breach have set up a Telegram channel where they posted thousands of users' names, email addresses, and other sensitive data. Hackers have also posted over 100 photos of individual Discord users holding up their government IDs.

Discord says approximately 70,000 Discord users have had photos of their IDs stolen by hackers who are now attempting to extort the site. The hackers claim to have more than 2,185,000 photos, but Discord has denied that number, claiming the hackers are exagerating to extort a ransom. It's unclear what actions Discord intends to take at this time.

As age verification laws proliferate, tech companies like Discord will likely have to develop new, more secure methods for verifying their users' ages.

Will Discord pay a ransom?

As is often the case in high-profile breaches, the hackers are trying to extort a ransom. However, Discord says that it will not pay a ransom or "reward" the cybercriminals responsible. A Discord spokesperson told The Verge, "we will not reward those responsible for their illegal actions."

Tech

Hurry: The Nothing Ear (a) earbuds just hit a record-low price for Amazons Big Spring Sale

Published

2 seconds ago

April 4, 2026

Vicky

Nothing ear earbuds against a colorful background.

SAVE 46%: As of March 27, you can get the Nothing Ear (a) wireless earbuds for $58.99, down from $109, at Amazon. That's a 46% discount or a $50.01 price cut.

Nothing Ear (a)

$58.99
at Amazon

$109
Save $50.01

If you want a pair of earbuds that stand out from the crowd without emptying your wallet, the Nothing Ear (a) should definitely be on your radar. For the Big Spring Sale, they've dropped to just $58.99, which is $50 off their usual $109 list price.

Mashable's Tech Reporter, Alex Perry, recently rounded up the reviews for these buds, and the consensus is that they deliver way more than their price tag suggests. They offer an open-midrange sound and clarity that outperform those of standard, more expensive AirPods, and they have active noise cancellation strong enough to drown out loud household distractions. Plus, you'll get around five hours of battery life even with every single battery-draining feature turned on at once, like ANC and multipoint pairing.

As always, I checked the fine print, and there are a couple of things you should know. Perry noted that the biggest critique across the board is that the charging case lacks Qi wireless charging and relies strictly on USB-C. But skipping wireless charging is a fair trade-off for a case that's as small and pocketable as Apple's AirPods. Also, according to the Amazon listing, the voice-enabled ChatGPT feature will only work on a Nothing series phone. Still, grabbing earbuds with this level of sound quality for under $60 is a total steal.

Tech

How to watch Austria vs. Ghana online for free

Published

13 seconds ago

April 4, 2026

Vicky

Antoine Semenyo of Ghana poses

TL;DR: Live stream Austria vs. Ghana in a 2026 International Friendly for free on ORF. Access this free streaming site from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

There are an incredible number of top International Friendlies taking place this week. We're being spoilt with Brazil vs. France, Colombia vs. Croatia, and a string of other high-profile contests. Austria vs. Ghana is not the biggest game on the schedule, but we're still making time to watch this interesting matchup.

If you want to watch Austria vs. Ghana in a 2026 International Friendly for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

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When is Austria vs. Ghana?

Austria vs. Ghana kicks off at 1 p.m. ET on March 27. This fixture takes place at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion.

How to watch Austria vs. Ghana for free

Austria vs. Ghana is available to live stream for free on ORF.

ORF is geo-restricted to Austria, but anyone can access this free streaming service with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Austria, meaning you can access free live streams on ORF from anywhere in the world.

Lve stream Austria vs. Ghana for free by following these simple steps:

Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)
Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)
Open up the app and connect to a server in Austria
Visit ORF
Stream Austria vs. Ghana for free from anywhere in the world

Credit: ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN (1-Month Plan)

$12.99 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee)

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but most do offer free-trials or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can watch Austria vs. Ghana without actually spending anything. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does give you enough time to stream select games before recovering your investment.

If you want to retain permanent access to free streaming sites from around the world, you'll need a subscription. Fortunately, the best VPN for streaming live sport is on sale for a limited time.

What is the best VPN for ORF?

ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport on ORF, for a number of reasons:

Servers in 105 countries including Austria
Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more
Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure
Fast connection speeds free from throttling
Up to eight simultaneous connections
30-day money-back guarantee

A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $68.40 and includes an extra four months for free — 81% off for a limited time. This plan includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month plan for just $12.99 (with money-back guarantee).

Live stream Austria vs. Ghana for free with ExpressVPN.

Tech

Hackers are exploiting a vulnerability in lots of e-commerce sites

Published

21 seconds ago

April 4, 2026

Vicky

Fish-eye lens view of a computer screen with hacking stuff on it

Hackers have found their way into a large number of internet e-commerce sites.

This latest cybersecurity threat targets web stores running on the Magento or Adobe Commerce platforms, according to BleepingComputer, which cited the security firm Sansec as first publicizing the exploit. That was just over a week ago, and since Sansec exposed the vulnerability, known as PolyShell, the firm claimed that 56 percent of vulnerable stores have been experienced attacks.

You can check out Sansec's analysis for the full technical details of what's going on, but in the simplest terms possible, it seems hackers have managed to insert a credit card skimmer into the API for Magento, an open-source e-commerce platform acquired by Adobe several years ago. Sansec says it spotted the attack being used on an unnamed "major car manufacturer."

We have contacted Adobe for comment and will update this story if they respond.

Adobe has released a fix for this in the beta branch of its software, but that doesn't help the presumably vast majority of sites running the non-beta version of the software. Until the fix goes public, this will be an issue for any site running Magento or Adobe Commerce.